


Who's Afraid?

by Cereal_Forks



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Young Justice (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Horror AU, IT AU, Unhappy Families, after it gets much worse, but it gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-21 03:18:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 66,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16151429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cereal_Forks/pseuds/Cereal_Forks
Summary: Watchtower County was a really tiny town composed of about one hundred by one hundred square feet of forest and maybe seven houses all compacted right next to each other. She was exaggerating of course, but to the twelve-year-old eyes of Cassandra Sandsmark, that’s what it felt like she was approaching driving through densely packed woods on the single lane road one late morning in July. All she wanted for her summer was to read comics or maybe have a little adventure, until she learns that Watchtower County is much more exciting than it appears, perhaps more exciting than she can handle.(Horror/IT au inspired by my sister allyallyorange on Tumblr)





	1. Jason Three Years Earlier

**Author's Note:**

> Happy first of Halloween everybody! 
> 
> For a treat this October, I've been working for a while on this horror au mostly inspired by IT (2017). Not an exact au of course, but the general concept and a lot of the plot points are taken from the film. Chapters will come out every day until the end of October. My sister is actually the one who came up with this au, she's already beta read the entire story for me, and she drew the scene in this chapter right here: 
> 
> https://allyallyorange.tumblr.com/post/177529145204/horror-movies-have-inspired-me
> 
> Go check her out, she's awesome. This story is my first time writing anything in the horror genre, but I think I did pretty okay. I hope you enjoy the story.

None of them would ever forget the last time they saw Jason Todd.

It was a rainy day in mid-July. Rainy, but not so rainy as it had been in the prior weeks. The streets were still filled with water, but the water levels officially were no longer rising. And Jason was sick of being trapped inside after weeks of nothing but sitting around watching the grey sky through a soggy window.

“Selina?” Jason asked, knowing that he always had better luck when he asked her for something than when he asked his father.

“Uh-huh?” She replied.

“Can I go out?” He asked.

“No,” Wayne said, even though he was fully aware that he was not the parent being addressed.

She looked up from the handheld game she was watching Cass play over her shoulder. “You want to go out? But it’s raining.”

“I know, but it isn’t raining as hard as it was yesterday,” Jason pointed out.

“I don’t know, it’s still pretty wet and gross out there,” Ms. Kyle said.

“That’s not fair, you hate any amount of water,” Jason whined.

“That is true,” Ms. Kyle agreed.

“Come on, please? It’s boring in here,” Jason said.

“No,” Wayne gave his input yet again without being asked.

“How can it be boring? You have four siblings,” Ms. Kyle pointed out.

“Yeah, but Dick’s old and boring, Cass and Tim only want to play with each other, and Damian’s still like, a baby,” Jason complained.

“Hey!” Damian shouted from his spot on the couch next to his father, staring at the book he was reading and smiling to himself whenever he recognized a word from his five-year-old vocabulary.

“And what would you do outside that’s more exciting than being in here, huh? Catching a cold?” Ms. Kyle asked.

“I’m not a baby,” Damian muttered to himself.

“I won’t catch a cold, I just need to get out, just for a little tiny while, please?” Jason begged.

“No,” Wayne said once more.

Ms. Kyle stared out the window for a moment, watching the rain fall loudly against the wall.

“I don’t know, Bruce, what do you think?” She asked.

“No,” Wayne said, but this time, with permission to say it.

“It isn’t raining as hard as it has been,” she observed. Jason grinned, knowing right then that he had her blessing to play in the rain.

“He’ll slip and fall and hurt himself,” Wayne warned, and honestly, that was the worst he suspected could happen.

“I won’t I promise, I’ll be really careful,” Jason said.

“It’s dangerous,” Wayne said.

“Come on, he just said he would be careful,” Selina said, “he’ll wear his jacket and boots and everything.”

“Yup, come on, please?” Jason begged.

Bruce looked up from his book out the nearest window. “The rain has let up,” he observed.

“Please, dad, I’m going crazy locked up in here,” Jason complained.

“Just let him go so we don’t have to listen to him whine anymore,” Dick suggested without looking up from his teen magazine.

Jason stuck out his tongue, not that Dick was paying attention enough to see it. He would always regret that, not looking up to see his brother one last time.

“You’ll be safe?” Wayne asked.

“Yes,” Jason swore.

“You’ll be careful?” Wayne asked.

“Yes,” Jason promised.

“You’ll wear your boots, and your coat?” Wayne asked.

“Yes,” Jason said, even though they would slow him down.

“You’ll be home by seven?” Wayne asked.

“Yes, can I go now?” Jason agreed.

Wayne looked to his wife, as if expecting her to come up with some other reason why he shouldn’t go out.

“Have fun, don’t be too long,” Ms. Kyle said instead.

“Thanks Selina,” Jason called, and he ran for the hall closet while Wayne questioned why he didn’t also receive a thanks.

They would never forget the last time they saw Jason Todd. It was only instants after he left the living room. He was wearing his grey raincoat, zipped all the way up to his chin, the same jeans he had been wearing every day all week, and his yellow rain boots. He was twelve-years-old and freckled, with black hair that curled just a little bit in the front. When he opened the door and the icy air hit his face, his cheeks immediately flushed pink. And that was exactly how they all remembered him for the rest of their lives.

“I’m going,” Jason shouted, already with one foot toeing out the doorway.

“Be careful, Jay,” Ms. Kyle warned one last time, “try not to slip.”

“Be back before seven,” Wayne reminded.

And Jason thought that was it. He was free to go.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go today.”

Jason turned again at the small protest. Tim, nine-years-old, and secretly, Jason’s favourite of his siblings stared back at him. There was something wrong. He could feel it deep inside, a feeling he would never quite find the right name for. Jason felt it too, somewhere deeper, but he mistook it for restlessness after being cooped up so long.

“It’s still raining pretty hard,” Tim pointed out, to excuse his uncharacteristic interruption.

“Relax, Timberly,” Jason instructed, Tim scrunched his nose at the nickname, Jason loved terrible nicknames. “Mom and dad said it’s not as bad as the last few days, and there’s no way I’m spending all summer in here.”

Ms. Kyle would only realize days later, and a part of her would attribute it to wishful thinking on her part, but a part of her was sure she was right, and she was. That would be the first and only time Jason slipped up and called her mom. Although, and she could certainly never know this, but he had been referring to her as such internally ever since she got engaged to his father.

Tim didn’t protest again, even though he wanted to. Jason had their parents’ permission, there was nothing left for Tim to do.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” Jason said when Tim added nothing, and then he was gone. For the very last time.

“Bye, Jay,” Tim whispered at the door.


	2. A Summer in Watchtower County

Watchtower County was a really tiny town composed of about one hundred by one hundred square feet of forest and maybe seven houses all compacted right next to each other. She was exaggerating of course, but to the twelve-year-old eyes of Cassandra Sandsmark, that’s what it felt like she was approaching driving through densely packed woods on the single lane road one late morning in July. Forty-eight hours ago, she had been at home, prepared and content for a long summer of reading comic books and playing video games. Forty-eight hours ago, she hadn’t known that her mother and father had actually been married for the past thirteen years. Forty-eight hours ago, her parents had decided that after eleven years of separation, it was finally time to follow through with a divorce. And now it was forty-eight hours later, and she was trapped in the passenger seat of her mom’s car driving to spend the summer with an old work colleague of hers who lived in the middle of nowhere where Cassie Sandsmark would be abandoned until the end of summer and the entire divorce situation was settled. Cassie would be amazed if they even had wi-fi in the little suburban corner of the universe they were headed to.

“You probably don’t remember, but you actually met Diana once when you were really little,” Ms. Sandsmark said as if that would trigger some interest in her daughter.

Cassie didn’t even bother to nod to confirm that she had heard her mother. She just stared out the window hoping that they might pass a deer, or a rabbit, or anything that wasn’t a tree. Ms. Sandsmark decided to keep talking anyways.

“I first met her on a dig in Greece a couple of years before you were born, you met her when she was overseeing an exhibit at the museum in Gateway, she lived with us until the exhibit was over, which was only about four months, I remember you thought she was just the coolest, you kept asking if you could skip school to go to the museum with her, you never seem to have that kind of interest when it comes to my work, I think you would have been about five at the time?”

“Why are you asking me? It’s not like I would remember any of it,” Cassie said, and she sunk a little deeper in her seat.

Ms. Sandsmark puffed out a deep breath of air. “Cassie, I know you aren’t happy to be spending the summer way out here, but can we be realistic for a second? It’s not like you’re going to be seeing any friends over the summer, you were just going to be on that computer of yours, and you can do that just as easily whether you’re in Gateway, or here, right?”

“I guess,” Cassie begrudgingly agreed.

“I need some time and space to settle things with that man, and if you aren’t missing school, or friends, then why shouldn’t you come out here?” She said “that man” as if it made him any less Cassie’s father. “I know it doesn’t make sense or feel fair, but one day you’ll understand that you’re really doing me a big favour staying out here for the summer.”

Cassie wanted to say that she didn’t care about one day, what mattered was that she was being uprooted from her comfortable and familiar room right then. “Sure, whatever,” she said instead.

“And who knows,” Ms. Sandsmark continued, “maybe a change of scenery will be good for you, you can get some fresh air, meet some new people, maybe you’ll even make some new friends.”

“Sure, whatever,” Cassie said again. She sincerely doubted it. Her plans consisted of arriving, saying hello to Ms. Prince, and barricading herself in the guest room with her computer. Still, Ms. Sandsmark seemed content with her daughters begrudging compliance, and the car fell silent once again excepting the static on the radio. But the static quickly became annoying, so Cassie reached out to change the station. She first pressed to buttons for all of her pre-set stations, and was met with static over and over, so she started twisting the knobs, eager to listen to anything that wasn’t static.

“Cassie, can you stop playing with the radio and just pick a channel?” Ms. Sandsmark asked, trying not to sound cross after her daughter was doing her a favour.

“I’m just trying to find a station,” Cassie said.

“Well can you please just pick one already? You’re giving me a headache.”

“I would if we had any service ay out here.”

“Cassie, what are you talking about?” Ms. Sandsmark furrowed her brow and glanced at her daughter through the corner of her eye.

“I just don’t want to listen to static, that’s all, don’t get mad at me because we’re out of range or whatever,” Cassie spat.

“What do you mean static?” Ms. Sandsmark asked.

“The static on the radio, god, isn’t there a single station that works way out here?” Cassie wondered.

“Cassie, do you need to get your ears checked?” Ms. Sandsmark asked, her daughter almost had more attention than the road now.

“No,” Cassie replied, “why would you even ask that?”

“Because there’s no static on the radio,” Ms. Sandsmark said.

And Cassie was silent. And she listened. And her ears weren’t filled by static anymore. An old nursery rhyme tune played, being sung by a young child. And she opened her mouth to tell her mother as much, to suggest that maybe she was the one who needed her ears checked. But her mother was quickly distracted.

“Oh, Cassie look—” and she pointed, “—there’s the sign, we’re officially in Watchtower County.”

So, Cassie looked. There was a big sign by the side of the road reading “Welcome to Watchtower County” next to a picture of an ugly cartoon squirrel or chipmunk, Cassie couldn’t tell, and a population count that Cassie didn’t notice because she was too busy noticing something else. 

It was a man, she thought, standing next to the sign. He was tall and lanky, all arms and legs and skin and bones swallowed up and drowning in a deep purple suit that looked to be a favourite of moths and mice, it was at least two sizes two big and with arms and legs that didn’t seem to match up in length, his skin was the ivory colour of keys on a piano or a book just on the verge of being called old, and stretched tight as if vacuum sealed to his skeleton, green hair like algae floating on top of a lake left undisturbed in the sun fell limp and stringy off the top of his head. He waved at her as they drove by, and he smiled a smile that could have been carved a part of his face it seemed so permanent between thin red-painted lips with his crooked yellow teeth that matched his big yellow eyes. Every fair blonde hair on Cassie’s arm stood at attention as she twisted in her seat to stare into those yellow eyes for as long as she could before he was gone, just as quickly as he had appeared.

“Cassie?”

She jumped when she heard her name, and the world seemed to fall back into place around her. The radio was playing some old song her mom liked but Cassie couldn’t remember the name of for the life of her.

“Yeah?” Cassie said.

Ms. Sandsmark had slowed the car somewhat to give her daughter more attention. She seemed worried. “I’ve been calling you for almost a minute now, are you feeling okay? Are you getting carsick? I can pull over if you need a break.”

“No, I’m okay,” Cassie said.

“Are you sure?” Ms. Sandsmark asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Cassie agreed.

“If you say so,” Ms. Sandsmark said in that motherly way that said she didn’t believe her daughter, but she wasn’t going to push the matter either.

A beat passed between the two of them before Cassie worked up the nerve to ask, “Mom, did you see that man back there?”

“What man?”

“Back by the sign, with the green hair and the purple suit,” Cassie said.

Ms. Sandsmark slowed down again. “There was no man by the sign, Cassie.”

“You’re sure?” Cassie asked.

“Do you need your eyes checked too?” Ms. Sandsmark wondered.

“No, I’m probably just tired, sorry.” Which wasn’t a complete lie, they’d been driving for nearly thirty-eight hours after all.

“Okay, get some rest, we should get to Diana’s in about half-an-hour,” Ms. Sandsmark said.

“Alright,” Cassie agreed. But when she tried to close her eyes, she felt it. Like a jackhammer beating against the back of her neck. The feeling of being watched by a pair of big yellow eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone can ask: yes, I am aware how big a county generally is, but "Watchtower County" sounds much better than "Watchtower Town" in my head, so I stuck with it. Just pretend it is a very small county and call it a day. Also, the song that Cassie heard on the radio is Oranges and Lemons, which was used on the IT (2017) soundtrack and I'll be honest, I've always been a sucker for that poem, you can hear it in the beginning of the first song on the soundtrack "Every 27 Years" and at the beginning of "Egg Boy". Thank you very much for reading the chapter.


	3. Meeting Ms. Prince

Cassie didn’t end up sleeping the rest of the drive to Ms. Prince’s house. Partially because of the deeply unsettled feeling that left her with a bad taste in her mouth, and partially because there was finally something to see, and she didn’t want to miss it.

As it turned out, there were more than seven houses. The houses seemed to be like a spot the difference game, they were all a little bit different, but in spirit they were identical. All about the same size with the same shingling on the roof and the same little yard out in the front and the same little driveway, so that Cassie knew that each house was different, but she couldn’t quite recall how so. Diana Prince’s house was just like the rest of them. The main difference that Cassie could tell, was that in opposition to the dull pastels lining the rest of the street, her house was painted a navy blue all over with a slightly peeling white trim.

“Here we are,” Ms. Sandsmark said as she pulled into the driveway and put the car in park, “I’ll get your bag, you go knock on the door.”

Cassie decided to wait by the car instead. All of the lights were out at Ms. Prince’s house, Cassie wondered if anyone was really home, maybe she had forgotten that Cassie was supposed to arrive, maybe they would walk up to the door and there would be a note telling them that she needed to leave town on business and they should go home. It wasn’t exactly somewhere she was eager to enter, especially not all by herself. The house next door seemed much friendlier, it was at least clearly populated. A boy about her age and his younger brother were playing out in the front yard, both boys had messy dark hair and dirty clothes, the older brother held a baseball high above his head while the younger jumped as high as he could to try to reach it. His brother laughed at him. Cassie hoped that maybe the older boy would notice her, but he was completely preoccupied with teasing his brother, so Cassie let her own gaze travel. A woman who must have been the boys’ mother stood in the window, she was frowning as she intently watched her boys play, as if she could blink and they would be gone.

“Cassie, what are you waiting for?” Ms. Sandsmark asked.

“What?”

“Don’t leave Diana waiting, let’s go.” Ms. Sandsmark had her daughter’s duffel bag thrown over her shoulder already, and she made a little shooing motion to get her daughter moving.

“Yeah, sorry,” Cassie said.

“Don’t say sorry, get moving,” Ms. Sandsmark said. So, she did.

“Right,” she agreed.

And just like that, they were already standing at the door. And for a moment that’s all they did, stood.

Seeing that her daughter was not motivated to do so, Ms. Sandsmark pressed the doorbell herself with a roll of her eyes which clearly read mother for: “I have to do everything myself around here”. From somewhere in the dark reaches of the house, Diana Prince wasted no time sprinting to the door, or maybe she had just been standing behind the closed shutters waiting for them to tell her they were there. Regardless, the doorbell had scarcely stopped ringing when the door was opened.

Any concerns that Cassie might have had about staying with a friend of her mom’s vanished the moment that door opened, because just from looking at her, Cassie could tell; Ms. Prince was super cool. Diana Prince was most likely the prettiest and most intimidating woman Cassie had ever seen. She had wavy black hair that swam around her shoulders and her body was proportioned so that she could wear a paper bag and look like a model, something Cassie couldn’t help but be envious of, since even a t-shirt never seemed to fit quite right on her twelve-year-old frame. As it happened, Ms. Prince wasn’t wearing a paper bag, but a short red sundress that showed off all of the defined muscles tracing along her arms and legs, giving off the impression that pretty sundress be damned, this was a woman who could, would, and perhaps even had snapped a man’s neck in one hand for disrespecting her. She was at least six feet tall and wearing four-inch heels on top of that, even though she was just inside her own house. But Ms. Sandsmark didn’t seem to be intimidated by the six-foot woman towering over them in the least.

“Diana, it has been much too long,” Ms. Sandsmark said, and she shook Ms. Prince’s hand fondly.

“It has been, how are you?” Ms. Prince asked.

Even while making boring small talk, Ms. Prince seemed to carry an intense air of coolness about her. Although Cassie would confess that even Ms. Prince couldn’t keep her attention, and she tuned out a little as they exchanged their typical adult pleasantries. They asked each other about work, and family, and the divorce, Cassie had heard it a million times before and she would hear it a million times again. So, she tuned out until her mother finally said the words: “you remember my daughter, Cassie, don’t you?”

That was Cassie’s cue to smile, wave, and say, “hi,” before the cookie cutter conversation was in her hands.

“Of course, I remember you.” Ms. Prince bent her knees a little, which made Cassie feel like she was five instead of twelve. “How have you been these past few years Cassandra?”

“I’ve been well Ms. Prince,” Cassie said.

“Just Diana will be fine, Ms. Prince makes me feel like I’m still in school,” Ms. Prince said.

“Are you a teacher?” Cassie asked. Ms. Sandsmark gave a look that said Cassie should have known that already, because she had just asked Ms. Prince about work before letting Cassie into the conversation, but Ms. Prince just laughed.

“Yes, I teach Social Studies at Watchtower High,” Diana replied.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Cassie said.

“Social Studies is Cassie’s favourite subject, it was her only A from last semester, ninety-two percent,” Ms. Sandsmark said.

“Mom,” Cassie hissed, her ears already heating up.

Ms. Prince just laughed again, which made her ears burn brighter. “You have an interest in politics?” She asked.

“History,” Cassie quietly corrected.

“Just like your mother,” Ms. Prince said.

“I guess,” Cassie agreed.

“You plan to be an anthropologist as well?” Ms. Prince asked.

“I want to, history and stuff is interesting, you know?”

“History is my favourite too, especially mythology, while you’re here, you should really have a look at my library, it’s almost exclusively history books, I’m sure you’ll love them,” Ms. Prince said.

Cassie couldn’t think of anything more boring than reading text books all summer. “Sounds fun,” she said anyways, because she wanted Ms. Prince to like her. “I thought you did the same job as mom, actually, working with museums and stuff.”

“I used to, I came back to Watchtower County about six years ago, and I guess I got attached,” Ms. Prince said, but she didn’t look Cassie in the eye when she said it.

“Back?”

“Hm?”

“You said you came back to Watchtower County, you’ve been here before?” Cassie asked.

“Yes, a long time ago,” Diana agreed.

Cassie waited for her to elaborate.

Diana didn’t.

“I can’t thank you enough for taking Cassie off my hands this summer,” Ms. Sandsmark said, and just like that, it was like the whole conversation had never happened.

“It’s really no trouble,” Diana assured.

“If I were a teacher, the last thing I would want to do is babysit all summer, haven’t you had enough of kids by now?” Cassie wondered, trying not to be put off by Diana’s strangeness. She was still cool, so Cassie decided to overlook the oddness.

“I don’t mind doing a favour for an old friend.” Cassie wondered what kind of blood sacrifice her mother had to make to be called a friend by such an awesome woman. “Besides, I get lonely all by myself all summer, some company will be nice for a change.”

“Still, we really do appreciate it,” Ms. Sandsmark said.

“I told you, it’s really no trouble,” Ms. Prince said.

“Thank you so much, Diana, it’s really such a big help,” Ms. Sandsmark said, and her phone began to buzz. “I’m so sorry.”

Ms. Sandsmark took a step to the side to pick up the phone. It sounded important. Cassie had noticed Ms. Sandsmark had been having lots of important phone conversations lately.

“You don’t want to be here, do you, Cassandra,” Ms. Prince observed once Ms. Sandsmark was gone.

“What? No, I’m totally fine with this,” Cassie said.

“You don’t need to lie, I understand, it’s summer, you’re a kid, you should be having fun with your friends, instead you’re way out here,” Ms. Prince said.

“Really, it’s okay,” Cassie insisted. “I don’t really have many friends back in Gateway, and I can play on my computer just as easily here as I could over there.”

“Computer games?” Ms. Prince echoed, and an eyebrow was primed for suspicion before she thought about it and seemed to relax. “Yes, maybe that’s for the best.”

“Really?” Cassie asked. No adult had ever encouraged her to stay on her computer all day and read comic books.

“Yes, that means you’ll be spending most of your time inside,” Ms. Prince explained.

“Inside?” Cassie echoed.

“That is where you play your computer games, is it not?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like that’s all I do, I like to go on walks and stuff in between that, sometimes back in Gateway, mom would let me take my laptop out on the porch when it was nice out,” Cassie said.

“Right, of course, I’m sorry, I misunderstood,” Ms. Prince said.

“Why do you want me to stay inside,” Cassie asked.

“It’s nothing, just safer that way,” Ms. Prince explained.

Cassie was finding it harder and harder to remember that Ms. Prince was the coolest woman she had ever met, and not some increasingly suspicious lady. “Is it dangerous around here?” She wondered.

“Dangerous? Not at all, you have nothing to worry about so long as you’re in my care,” Ms. Prince assured.

“Sorry, that was my lawyer,” Ms. Sandsmark said, cutting into the conversation at the absolute worst time, as always. “She says I need to get back ASAP.”

“Of course, would you like to come in for some tea before you go?” Ms. Prince offered.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t, I need to be getting back.” Ms. Sandsmark handed Cassie her bag. “You have fun and be good for Diana, make lots of new friends, the boy next door looks like he’s around your age.”

“Mom, I don’t need friends, I’m only going to be here for a couple of months,” Cassie said.

“I just don’t want you to be lonely, at least try talking to him, or anyone else in this town other than Diana, please?” Ms. Sandsmark pleaded.

And even though she didn’t plan on it, she said, “sure mom.”

“Good, don’t stay out too late either,” Ms. Sandsmark instructed.

“I won’t,” Cassie chirped what her mother wanted to hear.

“Curfew is at seven, so you won’t have to worry about that,” Ms. Prince said.

“Seven?” Cassie echoed incredulously.

“She can definitely stay out until at least eight-thirty, the sun doesn’t even set until nine,” Ms. Sandsmark agreed.

“Those are the town rules for summer, it’s nothing personal against Cassandra or anything,” Ms. Prince explained.

“I see,” Ms. Sandsmark said, “well, if those are the rules, no staying out past seven.”

“But mom,” Cassie whined.

“If you have a problem with it, you can talk to the municipal authorities,” Ms. Sandsmark advised.

“I don’t know what that means,” Cassie said.

“Local, the town’s government,” Ms. Sandsmark explained.

“This is totally unfair.” First, she was being shipped out into the middle of nowhere by herself, then she couldn’t even go out past seven pm, and the only cool part was Ms. Prince, who was almost as cryptic and unsettling as she was completely awesome.

“You’ll survive,” Ms. Sandsmark said, and then she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “I really need to go, but you be good, stay out of trouble, call whenever you want, I love you.”

“Love you too,” Cassie recited.

“I’ll see you in a couple of months.”

“Bye mom.”

“I’ll keep her safe, Helena,” Ms. Prince swore.

“Thank you, be good,” Ms. Sandsmark reminded once more, and then she was back in her car. And then she was gone. And Cassie and Diana were left alone. Silent for a moment with only the sounds of the boys still playing next door.

“I’ll help you set up in the guest room, then we can get something to eat, how does that sound?” Ms. Prince offered to puncture the moment, although she took the heavy bag from Cassie’s hands before waiting for an answer.

“That sounds great,” Cassie agreed, chasing Ms. Prince into the house, letting her prior worries of the woman’s character melt away into normal conversation. “What kind of stuff do you even do in a little town like this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first time trying to write Wonder Woman, I don't think I quite got it right, but she isn't in this story too much, so hopefully it wasn't too distracting. This was bit of a dull chapter, but one that had to happen, there are only a couple of those, I promise. Next chapter things start picking up as we begin to introduce the other kids. Thank you for reading.


	4. Across Town

Far away from Cassie and the rows of twin houses, on the other side of town, there was another house. Like Ms. Prince’s, it was easy to solve the spot the difference game with this house. The simple difference was that this house, painted a gloomy pewter grey, was at least twice the size of the houses surrounding from a weary distance. This house was two stories tall, just like all of the other houses, but it was much wider set, and it included a basement, the first floor was dedicated to a living room, a dining room, a generous kitchen, and two bedrooms, the second floor consisted of six more bedrooms, and an office shared between husband and wife, the basement was for storage, and each floor above ground had two bathrooms. It made sense why the house had to be so large compared to the usual narrow layout when it was explained that the house had once been home to eight people, five of whom were children, and although the first two sons were long gone, the house was still a justifiable size for six, especially when the eldest often visited, as he only lived in a small single apartment in the heart of town, and oftentimes needed a break from cereal three times a day. As Cassie watched the final minutes before curfew tick down, waiting for Ms. Prince’s home go into lockdown, the big house across town was filled with six people. The family’s butler, despite their protests that he should join them, was in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes from making dinner. The youngest son, only eight years old, was waiting impatiently to be allowed to eat his food. The only daughter, thirteen, sat at the table showing off how she could juggle her knife. The oldest son at twenty was visiting that particular night and trying to entertain his youngest brother. Their step-mother was alternating between telling her step-daughter that, while it was very impressive how high she could toss her knife, if their butler saw her, he would have a heart attack on the spot and smacking her step-son on the back of his hand with her fork whenever he tried to sneak food off his plate without anyone noticing. The head of the household stood at the doorway. Like Cassie across town, his eyes were also staring down at the time, watching the seconds tick by, only looking up to peer through the window at the empty driveway. And that made six family members, five permanent residents, and one frequent visitor.

Halfway across town, maybe a minute or so from the eldest son’s apartment at six fifty-seven pm, there was a boy. Cassie’s age, but not the boy next door. This boy rode a dirty red bike through the heart of town, and the people already tucked away in their homes didn’t even look up to see who was racing through the streets so late in Summer, they already knew. He rode until he reached the foot of the larger house’s driveway. launching himself from the seat of the bike to break into a sprint up the hill and to toss the bike haphazardly into the nearest bush with a grace suggesting he had practiced the maneuver more times than was likely reasonable. His sprint carried him as quickly as he could manage, and like the man in the house and Cassie across town, his eyes wandered back and forth from his watch to check the time, and the road to make sure he didn’t trip over thin air until he reached the door, which he threw open to nearly collide with the man waiting there.

The man was Bruce Wayne, former billionaire, he was famous for having donated nearly all of his wealth, once he was old enough to collect from the inheritance left to him by his late parents, leaving himself with a more-than-comfortable fifty million and moved from the city to the suburban Watchtower County, most likely in search for some peace, and he did gradually earn himself a family and a contented life for a few years. Among Watchtower County, he was famous for his paranoia, and cold demeanour. The boy was his third son and second youngest child, Tim Drake, he was famous for sneaking out long after curfew, although no one thought to tell Wayne that.

“You’re late,” Wayne said when his son skidded to a halt and doubled over right in front of him.

“It’s only seven,” Tim panted, and he collapsed to the floor where he fought to untangle shoelaces with exhausted trembling fingers.

“It’s seven oh two, that makes you late,” Wayne said.

“I lost track of time.” He always lost track of time, Wayne couldn’t understand it. Watchtower County wasn’t a very big, what could his son possibly find to preoccupy himself from nine in the morning until seven at night, only sometimes coming home for a quick lunch before ducking out again.

“I simply hope that your poor bike has made it back to the garage this time,” Alfred Pennyworth, their butler cut in before the chastising could continue.

“Sorry Alfred,” Tim said, “I’ll go get it now.”

“You most certainly will not,” Pennyworth disagreed, “I’ll see to the bike, as I always do, in the meantime, I believe your brother is in the process of starving to death, get to the table, both of you.”

“Yes, Alfred,” Tim said, and he ducked away to the dining room before his father could get another word in.

“You get going too, Master Bruce,” Pennyworth clarified when Wayne didn’t move from his spot.

Wayne watched his son sprint around the corner, believing once he was in his step- mother’s territory, he would be free from punishment. He looked through the windows on the door and he could see the dirty red bike among the bushes. It had been months since Wayne had seen the old thing and thought that Tim needed a new bike. He had hoped his silent refusal to find such a replacement would dissuade him from riding it out so often. It didn’t. The bike always ended up tossed in the bushes in a panic, no matter how dirty and dented it became. Wayne was beginning to worry that there was nothing he could do to convince his son to be careful.

“Master Bruce,” Pennyworth said again to get Wayne out of his own head, “off to supper with you, your family is waiting.”

Wayne grunted noncommittally, but he left to follow his boy.

In the dining room, argument had already struck up between his youngest.

“You’re late,” Damian was complaining.

“Only by two minutes,” Tim said, rolling his eyes slightly at the complaint. He was already settled into his usual space to the right of his sister and across from his older brother. When the seating arrangements were decided, it was hoped that keeping Damian and Tim apart, argument would be avoided. The plan was that Tim could talk to Cass, she would just listen, maybe she would ask a question, and Dick would chat with Damian, taking turns dominating the conversation, Selina would interject into whatever conversation she felt like, and Bruce would silently watch all of them. Of course, such a plan hadn’t worked. For years they had tried to shuffle the seats, but there was no way to keep the family quiet, so they just left it as it was, keeping the boys each next to their respective favourite sibling, and away from each other, and the adults all pretended it made a difference. Three years ago, it was easier to keep the boys apart, with an additional seat at the table, but no one spoke of those days anymore, no one had since they ended.

“It’s three now,” Damian pointed out.

“Whatever, I’m barely late,” Tim said.

“You’re still late,” Damian grumbled.

“Alright, fine, I’m late, I’m sorry, are you happy now?” Tim asked.

“Never,” Damian growled like the little monster he was.

“Guys, stop it, you’re arguing over nothing again, can we just eat dinner?” Dick asked. Although, the family had wordlessly deemed it appropriate to begin eating the moment Wayne sat down.

“No, Dick,” Wayne disagreed, “Damian’s right, it’s summer now, Tim can’t keep cutting curfew.”

Damian may as well have inflated like a balloon in his seat to have his father on his side and Tim knew he wouldn’t hear the end of that until summer was over.

“Bruce, he was only two minutes late, let him have his fun,” Ms. Kyle, Wayne’s wife who opted to keep her last name, said on her step-son’s behalf. Tim glanced up from his dinner to give her a grateful smile, which she acknowledged with a supportive wink.

“Putting himself in danger is not fun,” Wayne said.

“He isn’t putting himself in danger, he’s a kid, it’s summer, besides, he spends most of his time in the library all day, he should be safe there,” Ms. Kyle assured.

“I don’t like it,” Wayne insisted.

“I didn’t mean to be late, it won’t happen again,” Tim swore, as he had a million times before and would swear a million times again.

“This happens at least once a week, if it happens one more time, I’ll have no choice but to actually take action,” Wayne said.

“It won’t happen again, I got distracted, I’m sorry,” Tim said.

“It most certainly won’t,” Wayne agreed. Tim sank a little deeper in his seat.

The table was silent. 

“A new girl moved into town,” Tim said, partially so he didn’t have to sit in the suffocating atmosphere he had brought on, “she’s staying with Ms. Prince for the summer.”

“How old is she?” Dick asked, eagerly accepting his little brother’s plan.

“Around my age, I think,” Tim said.

“You can’t even be sure how old a little girl is, how pathetic you are,” Damian observed.

“Damian.” Dick dragged out the name in a fond reprimand, but he didn’t really do anything.

“Sorry, I didn’t carbon date her or anything, what do you want from me?” Tim asked.

“I would have known just from looking,” Damian boasted.

“Oh yeah?”

“Of course.”

“How old is Selina?” Tim asked.

Damian turned to his step-mother, she raised an eyebrow.

“Here’s a tip,” she said, “don’t you dare.”

“It’s impolite to ask a woman’s age,” Damian quietly agreed, knowing he would regret it if he guessed too high, and be humiliated if he guessed too low.

“Coward,” Tim accused.

“You take that back!” Damian ordered, jabbing his fork towards his brother and priming himself to leap over the table should he need to.

“No,” Tim said.

“Stop,” Cass quietly ordered, directing her knife at each brother in turn before returning to stabbing her dinner instead.

“Sorry,” Tim quietly muttered.

Damian scoffed.

“This girl,” Dick brought the conversation back to its intended target. “If she’s so close to your age, maybe you can make friends with her.”

“Pass,” Tim decided.

“Come on, Tim, you need to make friends sometime,” Dick said.

“I have friends,” Tim insisted.

“Friends your age, not the old ladies who work at the library,” Dick said.

“Barbara isn’t an old lady,” Tim mumbled somewhat pathetically.

“You need more friends, and this new girl won’t have any, you should talk to her tomorrow,” Dick suggested.

“I don’t want to,” Tim said.

“Then why did you bother bringing her up in the first place?” Dick asked.

“It’s just weird,” Tim said, “people don’t usually move to Watchtower County, especially not during summer.”

“Bruce moved to Watchtower County,” Cass said.

“Yeah, twenty years ago,” Tim agreed, “and no one’s come here since other than to pass through, no one ever comes here, and no one ever leaves.”

“Not true,” Cass disagreed again, “Steph came two years ago.”

“Fine, no one comes or goes on third summer rotations, so it’s weird that she did”

“Third summer? What does that mean?” Damian asked.

“Nothing,” Wayne said.

“Nothing you want to say,” Tim whispered under his breath.

“It’s in poor taste to mumble,” Damian said, “now tell me what you’re keeping secret, I demand it.”

“Tim,” Wayne warned.

“Why aren’t we allowed to talk about this? We all know it’s happening,” Tim said.

“Tim,” Dick echoed his father and shook his head.

“What is it?” Damian asked again.

Tim finally took that as his usual queue. If you don’t want to say what they want to hear, don’t say anything at all. He sunk deeper into his seat.

“Nothing,” he agreed. “It’s nothing.”

And as it always did whenever anyone tried to talk about anything strange, it was forgotten in a matter of seconds. The conversation shifted to a beautiful set of earrings Ms. Kyle had simply fallen in love with that afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, we're getting into a string of chapters that I actually like, I hope you all enjoy too.


	5. Airplane at Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday, I cried three times, because the team is coming back together, and I was so happy, then I reread all of my old YJ comics and I cried some more because I love them so much. This is everything I've ever wanted but never actually thought I would receive, DC is valid again (but they're on thin ice, I'm still pissed off about Wally and Roy).

Returning to the uprooted life of Cassie Sandsmark, she was finding something new to hate about Watchtower County. She was far too busy caught up in recalling the difficulties of falling asleep in a new bed for the first time to be aware of what was coming. All she was aware of was the pillow not being the one she was used to, and the covers being entirely too hot, so much so that she had actually get up out of bed to open the window before she could return to trying to sleep, and the digital clock next to her bed being far too bright. She had contemplated unplugging the clock completely, but she needed it for when she would open her eyes every fifteen minutes or so to make sure that it hadn’t magically become morning yet.

It still wasn’t morning when she opened her eyes.

Glowing blue numbers that blurred at the edges told her the time was eleven fifty-nine. She stared at them and waited, knowing that another minute wouldn’t make a difference. That was another thing she noticed was terrible about Watchtower County. Back in Gateway City, Cassie only ever counted seconds throughout the school day. First waiting for it to start, then waiting for lunch, and finally waiting for it to end. In Watchtower County, she was always staring at the time. Maybe because there was nothing better to do. Wait for curfew, wait for lights out, wait for morning, wait for midnight.

The blue numbers showed twelve and two zeroes. Cassie rolled onto her back so that the blue light shone on the side of her face. Blue light illuminated the whole room. The double bed, the desk and chair in the corner, the bookshelf consumed by textbooks, and the paper airplane lazily drifting through the window.

Cassie sat upright when she saw that.

It came from the pitch dark to the dim blue on an unwavering frozen draft that turned Cassie’s arms to gooseflesh. It dipped slightly and curved so that it collided with the floor right next to the wall rather than the wall itself. And then it sat there. Unmoving.

There was an irrational little part of her brain. The part that fed on paranoia and all the bad things she only ever saw in movies. It told her to wrap herself in the guest room blankets. The paper airplane was bad news, it said, the paper airplane wasn’t safe. But another voice in her brain spoke up to point out the absurdity of that thought. It was paper. How could paper possibly be dangerous? Even if it was dangerous, it would at least be exciting, which was more than could be said for the rest of her entire day. This part of the brain thrived on raw adrenaline and instinct. Realistically, there should have been a little voice of reason somewhere between the two, something that breathed common sense, but if it existed at all, Cassie had no choice but to assume that it was very quiet.

As it always did, the louder and bolder voice craving any semblance of adventure won out. By the time the clock was glowing twelve oh three Cassie’s bare feet were on an unnaturally chilled floor. Four minutes ago, she was sweating on top of her covers, now she almost considered stopping for a sweater. But the mystery of the paper airplane was far more exciting than her sudden chill.

The guest room was small, but the floor between her and the airplane seemed to stretch like in a bad dream. Unlike in a dream, however, she made it to her destination in the end. She crouched down to pick up the airplane and then she kept walking. Tracing her finger along all of the folds and creases keeping the piece of paper in its shape as she walked. At the window she stopped. And she squinted to see through the complete darkness. There was no sign of anyone who might have sent the airplane. Only the same old houses she had seen earlier, only it was even harder to tell them apart now, a tree or two was in each front yard, the street was abandoned when she looked both ways. Unless she was to count the storm drain directly across the street as something, which she didn’t.

Her attention turned back to the paper airplane when the street came up with nothing interesting. It was made out of sturdy white construction paper, maybe it was made with a little more care than the average paper airplane since it wasn’t just a lined piece of notebook paper and each fold was perfectly calculated so it almost seemed like the airplane was 3D printed rather than folded. Cassie turned it over twice in the dim blue light to ensure that it seemed completely ordinary excepting the fact that it flew in from the unknown at midnight before she let her fingers catch in a crease. Carefully, so that the sturdy paper didn’t tear, Cassie worked to disassemble the airplane into its original form.

After only her first couple of folds, her suspicion was proven right. Black ink was visible on the white paper. Cassie’s hands moved faster.

“Fuck,” she whispered when a corner snagged the pad of her thumb. Fat droplets of blood dripped from her finger like a leaking faucet. For a moment, she let the red infect the corner of the paper, then she went back to work. Just a paper cut, nothing to worry about. She got excited by the secret message, that was all. The chill of the icy floor stretched from her feet to her knees so that they felt made of rubber. She kept standing anyways.

Cassie moved her hands more slowly this time, she breathed more deeply, it was all she could do to keep her fingers from trembling and streaking pink everywhere she touched. She was carful in her movements this time, avoiding the corners and the black of the ink, so as not to disturb her message.

If she had looked at the clock, she would have seen it was twelve ten in blue numbers by the time she opened the airplane fully. Her eyes moved across six words, and the chill in her knees reached up to wrap three times around her neck when she read the bold black letters staining the white and the pink and the red.

 

_Don’t Ever Be Alone_

_IT Watches_

 

Cassie looked up from the letter. What was that?

A sound, soft and tingling in the recesses of her ears. It was a music box. Playing the same nursery rhyme tune she remembered in the car with her mother.

Cassie looked back down at the street.

It would be empty. Just like last time she checked. She knew it would be.

But when she looked out the window, she couldn’t see the street at all. Only red, like the red still leaking and mostly forgotten from her thumb. Cassie took a step back and her breath caught in her still frozen throat.

“Danger. Danger. Danger.” The paranoid voice whispered under the cries of the music box.

Then Cassie blinked, and the red wasn’t Danger at all. It was a balloon. Drifting in the same way the paper airplane had come. On an unsettling chilled breeze.

A beautiful red balloon adventuring into her bedroom at midnight. “Nothing to be afraid of.” Said the instinct voice

The balloon turned in front of her, reading in white letters “I <3 Watchtower County”. Especially right then, Cassie spared a dry thought, she most certainly did not. She read the caption twice, to be sure it was really there, before the red burst in front of her eyes with a pop that smashed the music box in her ears.

The breath caught in Cassie’s throat was finally swallowed down with the surprise. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the red to the absolute dark.

Dark until two yellow circles blinked open in the storm drain across the street. So much closer than the storm drain should have been. So close that she could see the matching crooked yellow teeth just below, framed by the same red as the balloon.

The music box was playing again. It squeaked, and it screeched like it was rusty and someone was playing it too fast. 

Both the voices in Cassie’s head screamed the same thing this time.

“RUN, GIRL. RUN.” They said.

And she did.

The music box grew louder with each step she took towards the door with her frozen rubber knees, but Cassie didn’t stop moving until the door was open and then shut behind her. And she kept moving after that too. Down the hall until the palms of her hands collided with Ms. Prince’s door at the end of the hall, and she slammed her palms against the door in time with the chanting of the voices in her head (“RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN”) and the agonized screams of the music box sobbing with each note it sang until the door opened. And Ms. Prince was there. Tall, and strong, and ready to protect.

“Cassandra? What’s wrong?” Diana asked, placing firm, strong hands on the girl’s shoulders, as if that would stop her from shaking.

“I—I—It— In the street!” Cassie struggled to articulate what she had just seen.

“What was in the street?” Ms. Prince asked.

“IT,” Cassie repeated.

“What?” Diana asked one more time. Cassie just trembled in her hold. The music was gone. The hot summer air already had her sweating again. But that didn’t mean It wasn’t still there, watching. Just like the letter warned her.

“What’s that in your hand?” Ms. Prince asked, hoping it would be an easier question for the girl to answer.

Cassie looked down at the former paper airplane crumpled in her hands. Shaking hands uncrumpled the message for Ms. Prince to see. They froze halfway. That cold feeling returned to her throat.

Big red letters read:

 

I <3 Watchtower County

 

Cassie didn’t even know that she started screaming.

Ms. Prince didn’t know what was so scary about a blank piece of paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, the formatting on this chapter didn't really work out for me. On the word document, I was allowed to use fun fonts for the letter and include a proper heart rather than that awkward looking emoji one, but I made do. Thank you for reading.


	6. The Boys Next Door

“Did you hear what happened last night?” Ms. Lois Lane-Kent asked her family at breakfast.

“No, what happened?” Her husband, Mr. Clark Kent asked.

“Yeah, what happened?” Her youngest son, Jon wondered, already at the edge of his seat offering his full attention.

Her older son, Conner had put up with twelve years of morning gossip and couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. It usually wasn’t even anything exciting, just something to talk about in the mornings. So, he just poured milk into his cereal and stared tiredly ahead at nothing in particular.  
He didn’t understand how his mother could have heard anything at all anyways, considering it was only eight thirty in the morning. But that was just what Lane did. She listened. And she heard. She was good at hearing things. There wasn’t a cricket that chirped in Watchtower County without Lane hearing about it. Lane had only been awake for less than two hours, she had gone and returned from her morning walk and that was all it took to gather the gossip that had occurred between seven o’ clock the previous night, and seven o’ clock that morning. Because she had gone out, and she had listened, and she had heard. Then she had showered and prepared for the day before waking up the rest of her family to tell them her news. It may have been summer vacation, but that didn’t mean Lane was about to let her boys sleep in until noon. If she didn’t wake them up before she and her husband left for work, they wouldn’t eat breakfast, and Lane wouldn’t be having that. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to relax thinking that she had left her two sleeping boys at home all by themselves when it was summer.

“You know the girl living with Diana for the summer? We saw her moving in just yesterday,” Lane asked.

“Uh-huh,” her youngest agreed.

“I heard she isn’t settling in so well, woke up in the middle of the night screaming about a letter or something in the streets, that’s what that sound was last night, now she’s refusing to leave Diana’s side, she’s completely fine though, nothing happened to her as far as I’ve heard,” Lane said, which meant that nothing bad had happened to her. Lois Lane never said anything if she didn’t have all of her facts.

“Wait,” Conner paused the conversation, “you heard her scream last night?”

“We heard something,” Lane confirmed.

“And you didn’t think to call the police? Or even just go next door and ask if anything was wrong?” Conner asked.

“Well, we weren’t sure what it was at the time,” Kent said.

“What else could it have been? A human scream is a pretty distinct sound, isn’t it?” Conner wondered.

“Lots of things sound like screaming Conner,” Lane said, “it could have been a kettle or the screech of tires.”

“That’s a load of bullshit,” Conner said.

Jon gasped in horror. His eyes began to water. Because hearing his big brother say a bad word was all it really took to upset little Jon Kent.

“Conner,” Lane snapped.

“No,” Conner spat back, “you didn’t think to do anything when you heard someone screaming in the middle of the night? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Conner, you’re upsetting your brother,” Kent said. Jon was sniffling by now. His nose was all red and his breathing was hitched. It should be noted how fortunate the Kents were that gullible, innocent, easily upset Jon followed the rules, because if he disobeyed even a single one of them, he surely wouldn’t have survived the summer.

“Sorry Jon,” Conner muttered.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Lane said, “there are some things in life that are just none of your business.”

“But you’re both reporters, isn’t it like, your job to make that kind of thing your business?” Conner wondered.

“Things work different around here,” was all Kent had to offer his son.

“There are some things you just can’t do anything about, even if you want to,” Lane agreed.

“What do you think spooked her anyways?” Kent asked his wife.

“Probably just a bad dream,” Lane suggested.

“Hm, most likely,” Kent agreed. He paused for a moment to consider the theory. It was possible. Hell, it was likely, but still, he shared an uncertain look with his wife. “You boys remember the curfew, don’t you?” 

“Seven!” Jon was eager to recite, his earlier scare from his brother’s outburst already long forgotten by his five-year-old memory.

“That’s right, which means you have to be home by?”

“Six!” Joh said.

“Good boy.” Kent fondly mussed his younger son’s hair before turning to his older. “Conner?”

“Yeah?” Conner asked.

“You know what time curfew is?”

“Jon just said it,” Conner said.

“I know that, I’m just making sure you know it too,” Kent said.

“It’s seven,” Conner said, “be home by six, drop Jon off with Ms. Anders at eleven, you’ll pick him up on your way home, don’t play in the forest or the middle of the street, I know the drill, we don’t need to do this every day.”

“You don’t need to get snappy, I’m just making sure,” Kent said.

Conner rolled his eyes.

“Conner, I’m not joking around, the curfew is there for a reason,” Kent said.

“I know that, I’m just sick of hearing it,” Conner agreed.

“That’s too bad, you need to stay safe, and look out for your brother, do you understand?” Kent instructed.

“Yeah, look out for Jon, I get it,” Conner said. That was the only part of the instructions that his father had really meant.

“Good,” Kent nodded. If he noticed that Conner neglected to repeat half of what he had said, he didn’t mention it.

Lane noticed at least. “Don’t forget to be careful yourself, right?”

“Of course,” Conner agreed.

“Good.” Lane shot a brief scowl towards her husband. He didn’t seem to see an issue, offering only a baffled shrug in return.

Conner grinned down at his cereal, knowing that his mother was going to have to have a word with him in the car (as if it would make any difference).

“Well, we should get going,” Lane decided, rising from her seat to give each of her boys a kiss on the forehead. Conner scrubbed at the soft mark left by her lipstick with a scowl, Jon copied him, but he was giggling.

“Right,” Kent agreed, checking his watch even though there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that his wife was correct.

“You boys be good, get Jon to Ms. Anders before eleven, okay, Conner?” Lois said one last time.

“Yeah, I know,” Conner said again.

“Bye mom, bye dad,” Jon called.

“Bye Jon, see you boys tonight,” Kent called. The couple picked up their things waiting by the door and then they were gone.

“Bye!” Jon twisted in his seat and shouted at the closed door. Both boys listened closely, they had good ears, the car drove out of the driveway. Jon spun around with a grin splitting his face nearly in two. He bumped the table and the milk nearly tipped over, Conner barely grabbed it in time, but Jon didn’t care. These were his favourite two hours of the day. For just two hours he got to have Conner all to himself and then he had to go to Ms. Anders and Conner would do big kid things that he couldn’t talk about.

“Hey, watch it,” Conner hissed as he righted the milk

“Kon! Can we play with chalk until I have to go to Ms. Anders?” Jon asked.

“You can do whatever you want, I’m going back to bed,” Conner said, pushing out his chair so he could put the milk back in the fridge where it wasn’t in danger of being tipped over by another careless movement.

“But Kon, mom and dad say you have to play with me until it’s time to go to Ms. Anders,” Jon whined.

“Too bad, I’m tired,” Conner said.

“C’mon, you can sleep for ever as soon as I’m gone, please?” Jon begged.

“Well maybe I won’t want to sleep once you’re gone,” Conner said.

“Please?” Jon begged one last time, folding his hands in front of himself very pathetically and trying to look as sad as he possibly could.

Conner rolled his eyes. As if he was ever really going to say no to his little brother. “Yeah sure, we can do whatever you want, you little snot, just get out of your pyjamas first.”

“Okay,” Jon agreed, hopping down from his chair and sprinting off to his room. He had to hop down, because his legs weren’t long enough to reach the floor when he was sitting in a chair.

“I’ll meet you by the door,” Conner called after him.

“Alright,” Jon called back just before he slammed his door shut.

Conner closed the door to the fridge and moved on to packing up the cereal to put in the pantry. After that was done he went to his own room to get dressed for the day himself.

“Kon, hurry up,” Jon shouted. Pounding on the door as soon as it closed.

“I said I’d meet you by the door,” Conner said.

“You’re taking too long,” Jon whined.

“Wait by the door, I’ll be right out,” Conner said.

Jon made a whining noise, but Conner heard him walking away.

When his older brother joined him by the door, Jon was already wearing his running shoes and hanging impatiently off the doorknob.

“Mom says you have to untie the laces before you put your shoes on,” Jon said, watching the upside-down image of his brother squirm his foot into his shoe. Jon had no such problem with the laces, as his own shoes were still Velcro.

“Don’t you want to go outside?” Conner asked.

“Yes,” Jon cried.

“This way is faster,” Conner said.

And that was enough for Jon.

Outside, it was sunny. Of course, it was sunny, it was always sunny during summer in Watchtower County. Except for the freak flooding three years before, but that was an outlier, and it didn’t count.

Conner squinted a little at the sunshine’s glare before he put a very cool pair of round sunglasses on and the problem was solved. Jon didn’t seem to think the problem was a problem at all, he just ran for his chalk bucket next to the door and then took off to the driveway.

The blue chalk was Jon’s favourite, and it showed. It was just a little stub so small that Jon could hardly draw with it anymore, but that didn’t stop him from digging deep into the bucket until chalk covered his arms up to his elbows and he found the stub. And then he set to work scribbling away.

“You know, there are other colours in that bucket,” Conner said, carefully picking through the bucket, keeping his fingers as clean as he could until he found his own favourite red chalk, which was burnt about halfway through.

“But blue is my favourite,” Jon said.

“I know, I know,” Conner said. With his red piece of chalk, he started by tracing a big red circle trapping his brother.

“Hey,” Jon protested.

“What?” Conner asked.

“You trapped me,” Jon said.

“Yup,” Conner agreed.

Conner didn’t draw much else if he was completely honest. He scribbled some weird looking designs that were all strong lines and sharp edges. Jon thought they looked pretty cool when he looked over, but Conner was quickly getting bored. So, he drew out a long intertwining sort of maze for Jon to trace his blue chalk over trying to figure out and called it a day. Moving to sit on the grass and watch while Jon was happy still tracing the maze and drawing trucks and dinosaurs in all blue. And Conner just watched. Until he got bored of watching. Then he closed his eyes. Behind his sunglasses, no one could even tell.

“Kon!” Jon shrieked what felt like the moment Conner closed his eyes.

Conner remembered the story his mother had told him just that morning about how she and his father didn’t help a screaming girl. No one would help Jon either.

“Jon!” Conner called back, startling awake.

But Jon was still sitting in the driveway.

“My chalk is gone,” he said, and his bottom lip trembled a little as he showed off his blue fingers.

Conner puffed out a relieved sigh. “Don’t scream at me like that,” he said, “I thought you were getting murdered or something.”

“But Kon, my chalk,” Jon whined.

“We’ll ask dad to buy more chalk next time he has a day off,” Conner decided, “here, you can use the red.”

He threw it across the driveway. Jon fumbled, but he caught it, and that put a small proud smile on his face.

“Use up the other colours as much as you can too, or dad will say it’s a waste to buy you a new bucket,” Conner instructed.

“Okay,” Jon agreed, and he left a streak of blue across his face when he scrubbed at his wet cheeks.

He took the white chalk and started to draw again. Conner watched him this time. And he just watched him and listened to Jon babble the same things he had been saying since school ended about where all of his friends had gone for the summer and how excited he was for the first grade. Conner didn’t mind so much, he liked his brother, he liked listening to him talk. It was better talking with Conner listening than screaming with no one doing anything about it. Jon covered practically the entire driveway with white chalk. Then he moved on to the green. Then Conner’s offered red. Finally, he worked with the yellow chalk.

Then he sat on his knees and he stared at what he had drawn.

“Kon, look what I drew,” Jon called when he was done.

“Cool,” Conner said on instinct, he looked at the shapes of colour through squinted eyes. He moved down to the foot of the driveway to get a better look. He still had no idea. “What is it?”

“The clown,” Jon replied.

“What clown?” Conner asked.

“The one the girl next door saw last night,” Jon said.

Conner looked at the chalk more closely. He could see a clown now. He wasn’t sure how he had missed it the first time. A chalky white makeup face, messy green hair, bright red lips around yellow teeth, and big, round, yellow eyes.

“He wanted her to float with him, but she said no,” Jon said.

Conner heard music.

“It’s okay, she’ll float eventually, we all float.”

Soft tinkling music somewhere far away, a slow tune. 

“You’ll float too.”

Like a Jack-in-the-Box. Building.

“You, me, your brother, we’ll all float down here.”

Wait, that wasn’t right.

Jon was the one talking to him.

“Conner?” Jon said.

“What?” Conner asked.

“I said,” Jon repeated, “look what I drew.”

There was a big white shape in the driveway. Inside of it there were some red and yellow shapes, and on top a big green shape, but it wasn’t really anything in particular.

“It’s really great, Jon,” Conner said.

The music was gone, but the chill gripping his spine was still there.

“C’mon, we should get walking to Ms. Anders’ place,” Conner said.

“Okay,” Jon agreed, he bounced to his feet and rubbed his hands on his ratty, torn jeans. “Can I hold your hand?”

“Sure,” Conner said.

Jon stared for a moment. Conner never wanted to hold his hand, he said it was embarrassing and it looked stupid. “Really?” Jon wondered.

“Hurry up before I change my mind,” Conner said.

Jon ran the rest of the way down the driveway to cup Conner’s hand in his.

“Ew, your hand is all cold and sweaty,” Jon complained.

“If you don’t want to hold it, let go,” Conner suggested. But he squeezed his brother’s hand a little, he really didn’t want him to let go.

“No, it’s okay,” Jon said, “hey Kon, guess what?”

Conner cast one last glance at the vague chalk shapes behind them. How he had ever seen a clown in them, he had no idea.

“What?” Conner asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other character's I've never written before include: Jon, but he's only 5, so really, he's just a little baby, and I just really wanted to write him and Kon being bros. Also, there was nothing harder for me to write than Clark Kent and Lois Lane turning a blind eye to all the bullshit going on, but I had to, and it hurt, I assure you, I'm fully aware of how wrong it is, but the curse of the town makes it so. But, we've finally introduced 3/4 of my main kids now, and Conner was actually my favourite one to write, he's a bit of a brat, but I got to explore a lot of character depth, and I love him. I hope you enjoyed the update.


	7. The Thing in the LAUNDRY Room

Ms. Anders might have been even taller than Ms. Prince. She was so tall she had to duck a little when she greeted the Kent boys at the door to her apartment. But she wasn’t as intimidating as Ms. Prince was, she had softer, rounder features and a smile that felt like sunshine. She also had curly red hair so long and so thick that if she shaved her head she could knit an entire sweater with it, and gloves to match. Jon’s hands reached out to tangle in the ends of that long red hair as soon as the door opened.

“Hello boys,” she greeted with a kind smile. 

“Ms. Anders guess what Kon and I did this morning?” Jon said, tugging on her hair like it was the only way to get her attention from way up there.

“Did you play with chalk?” She guessed, gently pulling her hair out of his hands before he could stain it blue and white with his chalky hands.

“Yeah, how did you know?” Jon asked.

“Because you’re covered in it,” Ms. Anders replied.

“Oh.” Jon looked down at his dirty clothes as if he hadn’t noticed the colourful dusty stains before.

“Come on,” Ms. Anders said, “let’s get you cleaned up and then you can help me make lunch.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jon eagerly agreed, and he clasped her hand when she offered it, “can we make the nuggets that look like dinosaurs that mom says are bad for us?”

“Of course,” Ms. Anders agreed, “and Conner, you know you’re always welcome to join us.”

“Yeah!” Jon seemed thrilled by the concept, as if Ms. Anders didn’t suggest the same thing every time Conner dropped him off. “Kon, you should stay, she’s gonna let us have the chicken nuggets that look like dinosaurs that mom says are really bad for us, but she never tells mom, c’mon, please?”

“Nah, I don’t need a babysitter,” Conner said, a little offended that she would even suggest such a thing.

“Just this once, please?” Jon begged.

“No,” Conner said, “I’m just gonna go home, I’ll see you later, okay.”

Jon pouted, but he had mostly come to terms with the impossibility of this particular battle. “Okay, bye Kon.”

“Bye Jon,” Conner said. And then as an afterthought that he didn’t really understand himself, he added, “be careful.”

Jon frowned a little at that. Conner didn’t usually tell him to be careful, maybe because Conner himself wasn’t particularly careful. Still, Conner had said it.

“I will,” Jon agreed. “I love you, Kon.”

That wasn’t normal either. But Conner nodded to prove that he had heard his brother. They just stared at each other in a solemn silence for a moment, as if each trying to memorize the other.

Ms. Anders didn’t seem to notice anything strange about the farewell, she just tugged on Jon’s hand gently to lead him deeper into the apartment.

“Goodbye, Conner, have fun, come along Jon,” Ms. Anders said.

“Okay,” Jon agreed, and on one side of the door, the strangeness evaporated. “Today, I ran out of my blue chalk, and blue is my favourite colour, so I had to use the other colours, but it’s okay because Kon said dad’s gonna buy me new chalk next time he has a day off,” Jon was saying as the door closed.

And then Conner was all alone in the hallway. He waited by the door a moment, not quite sure what he was hoping for. Whatever it was, it wasn’t coming. The door stayed closed, so Conner started down the stairs.

Like everything else in Watchtower County, the stairs were very old, they creaked when Conner put his full weight on them. So, he tried to walk gently, but that didn’t stop the whining of the stairs. They groaned, and they creaked, and they cried, and they screamed, and then Conner reached the bottom of the stairs. He stood still.

The screaming kept going.

It was a high-pitched screaming, it could have been either a young boy or a girl of any age. It was coming from down the stairs. Conner looked to the right by the bottom of the staircase. There was a door marked “LAUNDRY” in all capital letters. To the right there was just a wall.

He pressed his ear to the door to the LAUNDRY.

He could hear loud snotty sobs between horrified shrieks down there.

“Hello?” Conner called against the door. The screaming was silenced. “Is anybody down there?”

Silence.

Unless he listened very closely, then he swore he could hear the soft chimes of a nursery tune being played on an old wind-up music box. But Conner didn’t want to hear that, so he didn’t listen too closely.

“Hello?” He called again, and he twisted the doorknob to match this time. There was a keyhole on the door, but it wasn’t locked, it swung out when Conner pulled. Behind the door there were some stairs. Steep, narrow stairs leading straight down into pitch blackness. Conner started feeling at the walls for a light switch, still listening, but not too carefully.

“Conner?” Something said down the stairs in the blackness.

“Hello?” Conner called back.

“Help,” Something pleaded.

And then there was silence again.

Silence except for the music if he listened very closely.

Lane and Kent could ignore the screaming if they wanted to, their son would not be so apathetic. When he heard the something quietly call for help that was all he needed. Somewhat awkwardly, he ran down the stairs, keeping a tight hold on the railing so that he wouldn’t trip down the too steep stairs.

“Hello?” He shouted all the way down, but he didn’t get any reply. “Hello?”

Down. Down. Down into the dark, where the music played louder, even if he didn’t listen closely.

“Hello?” He called again.

No reply, only music. Just like the music in the driveway.

Conner paused.

His running shoe made a splash when it touched the stair third to the bottom. He heard a slamming noise behind him. The door.

Conner turned around. If he squinted his eyes, he could see daylight illuminating the outline from where he had come.

“Conner?” Something said.

Conner turned back to the LAUNDRY room. It wasn’t pitch black anymore, there was something glowing. Bloody and red in the middle of the lake at the bottom of the stairs. It dimly lit up the room to let him see where he was. Everything was half-underwater, a quartet of washing machines on one wall and a trio of driers on the other, a vending machine full of one-use detergents, bleaches, and dryer sheets. All completely useless now that they were half-drowned.

“Yes?” He replied.

“Hello?” Something said.

“Hello?” Conner echoed.

“Conner. Come down here.”

And he didn’t know why, but he did. The water was too thick to be water, but Conner didn’t notice that, just like he didn’t notice the building music. He waded about to his hip in the water, down until he wasn’t on the stairs anymore, then he took three more steps after that.

Deciding he had followed the instructions well enough, he tried calling again. “Where are you?” He asked.

“Curfew is at seven, Conner.”

“What?”

“Curfew is at seven. Be home by six. Look out for Jon.”

“I know that.” He heard it every morning, in the half hour that his father pretended to care about him. But how would the voice in the LAUNDRY room know that? How would the voice in the LAUNDRY room know his name, actually? “What are you?” Conner realized was the better question.

“Why did you break the rules, Conner?” It asked in return. The water started to bubble, like it was boiling, but it didn’t feel hot. Each bubble seamed to raise the water level, slowly reaching up from twelve-year-old-hip level towards the ceiling.

“I didn’t break any rules,” Conner said, taking a step backwards, back towards the stairs, back towards the door.

“It’s okay, Conner,” It said. “We’ll do better this time, you’ll be better this time.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“You don’t understand much, do you?” he wondered back.

“Who’s there?” Conner asked.

“You are,” he replied.

From the pit of the bubbling red, something rose. A mirror image, grinning rather than gaping in shock.

“It’s okay,” he said, “they built you again.”

Conner took a step backwards. He advanced.

“They did better this time, I’m better this time,” he insisted.

“What are you?” Conner asked.

“I’m me, I’m you, but how they all want you to be,” he replied.

“Conner?” It asked. “Why did you break the rules? Conner? Why did you skip class? Conner? Why did you fail your test? Conner? Why don’t you ever listen? Conner? Why did you make Jon upset? Conner? Why aren’t you more like your father? Conner? Conner? Conner? Conner?”

It was screaming now. It was screaming in his ear, and the music was too loud, and he was still smiling and walking closer.

“Shut up!” Conner shouted, but he was drowned out by Its screaming. “I didn’t do anything wrong! Go away! We don’t need you!”

“If they don’t want me, then why did they make me?” He asked.

“I don’t know!”

“That’s because you don’t know anything,” he said, “but that’s okay, they did better with me, I know why I’m here.”

And Conner really didn’t want to know the answer. “Why?” He asked anyways.

“It’s because they’re sick of you.”

And that was when Conner’s heel hit the bottom step. Conner wobbled, waving his arms to keep balance, but it didn’t matter. He lunged. Grabbing Conner around the neck and pushing him back. Conner heard a loud crack when the back of his head collided with a stair underwater. Conner gasped in pain. The water he inhaled was too thick to be water, but Conner didn’t notice that. Conner didn’t think about that. Just like Conner didn’t notice the music and It’s screaming still directly into his ears.  
Conner breathed when he raised him above the water to look him in the eyes one last time. Conner looked into an identical replication of his own face, grinning as he coughed and choked. Identical, that is, except unlike Conner, he didn’t have his father’s eyes. Conner’s eyes were blue, just like Clark and Jon’s. His eyes were yellow.

“They’re sick of you,” he said, “and they don’t want you anymore.”

And then he pushed Conner back under. Water rushed in his mouth and nose (it wasn’t water, he knew exactly what it is) as he screamed even though he knew that was just about the stupidest course of action he could have taken. He wrapped his fingers around the hands, so much longer than his own even though he thought they were meant to be identical, squeezing his throat as his vision, already impaired by the water (it wasn’t water, he couldn’t deny that it wasn’t water, but he didn’t want to notice) began to blur even further.

When he was brought up again, he couldn’t even take a proper breath his windpipe was being crushed so tight. He was crying a little as he stared into big yellow eyes. Eyes attached to the clown Jon had drawn in the driveway, pale and grinning. It was laughing at him.

Conner coughed and sputtered, all he could see were those eyes now, everything else had faded to black. Those eyes were laughing at him.

“It’s okay, Conner,” It said, “we’re going to make you float.”

“No,” Conner hissed.

“What?” It asked, leaning forward with those awful yellow teeth, as if It were trying to hear better.

And when It was close enough, Conner drove his forehead against It’s in a moment of adrenaline induced inspiration.

It shrieked in shock, the same screams Conner had heard from down there in the first place. Its grip slackened, and Conner pulled away. He took one deep breath before he started running up the stairs. He could still see the illuminated silhouette of the door, and his heart pounded with hope.

The puddle chased him as he ran up the stairs, every step was a splash into “water”. His hand grasped the doorknob, he pushed.

The door didn’t move.

The “water” covered his ankles.

Conner turned around while he pushed against the door.

It grinned at him, taking one stair at a time as slowly as It pleased.

“Help!” Conner screamed, and he beat at the door. “Help! Someone!”

No one was listening to his screams. Just like no one was listening to the girl next door. Or maybe they were listening, maybe they just weren’t caring.

“Someone open this fucking door! Please!” Conner shrieked.

“Water” was up to his knees now. It’s hand wrapped around his ankle, one finger at a time. Conner screamed.

The door opened.

“What are you doing down here?” The man who opened the door asked. He had dark hair, and a pretty face, and a big basket of laundry under his arm.

Conner shivered as he felt the hand around his ankle obediently let go, and the water receded back to where it had come.

“Hey, are you, all right?” The man asked.

“I,” Conner managed to stutter, and then he folded over, and he vomited into the man’s laundry basket. Folded over like this, Conner finally got a good look at himself in proper lighting, and he finally confirmed what the “water” really was. He was completely covered in red, sticky blood. Conner heaved again all over the basket of blue shirts. Police officer shirts, the man was a cop.

To his credit, the man didn’t cry out in disgust. He placed a careful hand on the back of Conner’s head that made the boy shiver.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” the man said, and then he paused, carefully prodding the back of Conner’s head, which hurt more than anything, “are you bleeding?”

Conner glanced pitifully up, at the man. He wanted to scream, “what does it look like, you idiot?” But he couldn’t trust himself to speak.

The cop pulled his hand away from Conner’s hair. It came back red.

“Hey, kid? Look at me, I’m going to call your parents, you’re going to be okay, can you tell me what happened?” the officer asked.

Fear bubbled up in Conner’s throat again. Not a fear so primal as when he was being held under the blood, or when It had a hand around his ankle, but still a fear. A fear that his parents were going to find out that he got in trouble again.

Conner pushed wobbly hands against the officer’s clean blue t-shirt. He didn’t even seem to mind the bloody handprints left there. 

“Kid, easy,” the officer said. But Conner couldn’t, he kept pushing the man until he was out of his way, stumbling a little from how much force a most-likely-concussed kid could still put into a shove.

Then, Conner ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it was at this moment that I realized: writing horror is really hard and I have no idea how to do it. Coming up with a non-abstract fear for It to shapeshift into was really hard, and I think it still came across as pretty abstract. I ended up thinking Match and using him as a vehicle for Conner's family-based insecurities which are going to get explored throughout the series (the Kent family is 65% of the purpose for the Unhappy Families tag). I hope I did okay, and I hope the chapter was enjoyable.


	8. Has Anyone Seen the Kent Boy

“I know, Clark,” Wayne was saying on the phone as he got home late that night. “Yes, I understand, and if I knew anything, I would tell you, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.” He ran a hand along his face in that way he always did when he was tired. “Have you called the police yet?” The Wayne family watched him kick off his shoes, something he never did, except for when he was very stressed and didn’t think he had time to take them off properly. “Then you’ve done all you can do for now, let them do their job, hopefully he’ll turn up in the next twenty-four hours.” Dick shrugged when the family looked to him as if he would know something. “I’m really sorry Clark, I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” The family was actively waiting for him to end the call now. “Okay, bye.”

“What was that all about?” Dick asked when Wayne took the phone away from his ear to end the call.

Wayne seemed confused by the sight of his eldest. “Weren’t you just here yesterday?” Dick scarcely ever visited two days in a row. But the whole day seemed to be full of odd happenings.

“Yeah, someone flooded the laundry room at the apartment though, and then a kid barfed on all my uniform shirts, so I had to get Alfie to do them,” Dick explained, “but anyways, was that Clark on the phone.”

Wayne sighed, “yes,” he said, collapsing into his designated chair in the corner of the room and rubbing that tired hand across his tired face again.

“What’s the matter?” Tim asked, home on time for once, in fact, he had come home early, which was why Wayne was allowed to have been out late.

“Apparently, the Kent boy didn’t come home for curfew,” Wayne said.

An uncomfortable shiver filled the living room.

“When did they last see him?” Ms. Kyle asked.

“This morning, before they both went to work, but the last people who claim to have seen him were his younger brother’s babysitter, and the younger brother himself, they both say he said he was going straight home,” Wayne said.

Wayne and Ms. Kyle shared a long, nearly frightened stare. They recognized the scenario all too well.

“Kory Anders is the kid’s babysitter, isn’t she?” Dick asked.

“I believe so, why?” Wayne asked.

Dick’s hands felt clammy. “I think I saw him.”

“What?” Wayne sat at attention, “when? Where?”

“It was around noon I think, he had locked himself down in the laundry room somehow, I let him out when I was going to do my laundry, then he barfed all over my clothes,” Dick confessed, “he was bleeding in the back of his head, I think he had a concussion, he ran before I could be sure.”

“And you didn’t stop him?” Tim asked.

“I tried, I didn’t expect him to run that fast, as I said, I think he was concussed,” Dick said.

“Right, sorry,” Tim agreed. It wasn’t the adults fault they couldn’t see what happened. He had to remind himself of that sometimes.

“No, you’re right, I should have been able to stop him, he was a twelve-year-old kid with a concussion, I could have done something, but it just seemed like one of those things, you know?” Dick said.

“Not really,” Tim said.

“One of those things that isn’t really any of your business,” Dick elaborated.

It isn’t their fault. Tim reminded himself. It can’t be.

“That’s horrible,” Tim said anyways.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Dick insisted.

“But you could have done something,” Tim said. But he didn’t. The adults never did. And the adults never would either.

“I need to call Clark,” Bruce decided, rising and pulling his phone back out from its recent slumber in his pocket.

“Why bother?” Damian asked, “he’s most likely dead by now."

“He isn’t dead,” Tim snapped, “he’s just missing.”

“Yeah, missing,” Damian scoffed, “just like—” He cut himself off before he could dig his own grave any deeper.

“Just like?” Tim encouraged with a dark scowl.

“Just like Greta Hayes?” Damian suggested. 

Greta was Tim’s age, she was in his class actually, smart girl, good at math. She had a bit of a thing for Tim, but he never noticed. She went missing the day school let out. Her parents said she locked herself in the bathroom to take a bath after dinner, two hours later, when they busted open the door, she was gone without a trace. Marked down as a runaway, even though she allegedly got along very well with her parents. The police suspected her dodgy older brother had something to do with her disappearance, but there was no proof towards anything so far. And there hadn’t been for over a week.

“Yes,” Tim said, “exactly like Greta Hayes.”

“Greta Hayes is dead,” Damian said.

“No, she isn’t,” Tim said.

“Yes, she is, she’s dead, and she’s never coming back,” Damian sneered.

“There’s no body, that means she isn’t dead yet, she’s only missing,” Tim hissed.

“Three years from now, when there’s still no body, will you still say she’s only missing?” Damian asked.

“Damian,” Dick hissed.

“No, I want to know,” Damian said, “what about ten years, what about twenty? Will she still be alive and missing then?”

“Maybe she will be, I don’t know,” Tim said.

“She’s dead, Timothy, you might as well accept that now,” Damian spat, “she’s dead, and so is the Kent boy, and so is Jason, and just because we don’t have a body doesn’t mean he isn’t gone.”

“Shut up,” Tim shouted.

“Don’t think I don’t know what this is really about,” Damian hissed, “you can’t handle the fact that Jason died, and if he can’t be dead, no one can be dead, so you’ve just decided that everything’s okay and everyone’s alive, but you’re wrong, they’re all dead, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“That’s enough,” Ms. Kyle snapped, they both fell silent.

Wayne stared at them. He had that faraway look in his eyes that he always had whenever one of them slipped up and said that name.

“Father,” Damian sputtered lamely

“Damian,” Wayne replied.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that,” Damian said, shrinking back somewhat under the blank stare that wasn’t even really directed at him.

Wayne opened his mouth as if to say something. To take someone’s side in the argument. But he just stood there, staring and with his mouth half open in an undignified daze.

“Bruce,” Ms. Kyle called.

“Hm?” Wayne turned to his wife. He was blinking heavily, as if just waking up from a nap.

“You need to call Clark, remember? To tell him his son is probably concussed somewhere,” Ms. Kyle said.

Damian bit his lip to keep quiet.

“Right,” Wayne agreed, nodding somewhat absently. He left the room a moment later, staring at his phone.

Ms. Kyle looked to her step-sons. “Damian, you know how your father feels about Jason’s death.”

Tim bit his lip to keep quiet.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Damian agreed.

“It’s okay, it isn’t your fault,” Ms. Kyle said, “just be careful, it’s dangerous this time of year, we don’t want you ending up like that Hayes girl or the Kent boy.”

“Or Jason?” Damian asked, tentative, but apparently thinking the risk worth it.

“Yeah,” Ms. Kyle agreed, “or Jason.”

Tim stood up from his position on the floor. “I’m going upstairs,” he decided.

“Tim,” Dick called, moving to go after him, but Cass grabbed his wrist and shook her head.

Damian was wrong.

There was something Tim could do about it. And it was about time he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little bit shorter, but still good and important. I hope you enjoyed it.


	9. Hiding Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place before the last one.

“You look like something killed you,” someone called.

Conner stumbled, catching his balance on a nearby telephone post. He looked around, there was only one person outside down the entire street, and it wasn’t a person he feared.

Bart Allen was perched on the railing of his front porch, happily slurping at an orange creamsicle which had mostly melted all over his hands, swinging his feet a little, and watching another kid his age stumble around the street covered in blood. All around, Bart was having a fairly swell day.

“Hi, Bart,” Conner said in that tired way that everyone seemed to greet Bart. Bart was in Conner’s class. Bart thought he was friends with everyone. But people didn’t really like Bart very much. He was small for his age, at least half a foot shorter than Conner, and he was too smart for his own good, and he talked too much, and he asked annoying questions.

“Hi, Conner, don’t you live that way?” Bart asked, pointing in the same direction Conner had come from.

“Don’ wanna go home,” Conner mumbled.

“Why not?” Bart asked.

“Don’ wanna,” Conner repeated.

Bart watched the boy sway a little for another moment. “You can come to my house if you don’t want to go to yours, it’s this one, right here.” He pointed behind himself.

“’m ‘kay,” Conner said, meaning to say, “I’m okay,” but instead sounding like he was accepting the offer.

Bart inhaled what was left of his creamsicle, licked the residue off his hand, and hopped off the porch to run across the road. He grabbed Conner’s wrist with the same hand he had just licked.

“Y’r gross,” Conner reported.

“Hey, I just grabbed your bloody hand and you don’t hear me complaining,” Bart said, dragging Conner stumbling after him.

“Don’ wan y’r help,” Conner said, he tried to struggle against Bart’s hold, but, nearly being drowned by an evil doppelganger, fighting a crazy clown monster, and running from a police officer all while suffering a concussion had claimed most of his fighting energy, so even a wet spaghetti noodle like Bart Allen could drag him wherever he pleased with minimal difficulty like he was a tiny sleeping puppy on a leash.

“That’s too bad, you already said yes,” Bart said, and he threw open the door. He cupped the hand not holding Conner’s wrist around his mouth before he shouted, “Grampa Hal, this kid looks like something killed him.”

There was a long pause throughout the house. For a moment, Conner thought Bart’s Grampa Hal might be his imaginary friend. Then a man shouted back, “there’s a what?”

“Yeah, he’s all bloody and gross,” Bart said.

Someone was moving in the house. Conner’s breath caught in his throat. “He’s gonna call m’ par’nts.”

“Nah, we’ll just tell him not to, Grampa Hal’s cool like that,” Bart insisted.

“Cool” was not the word Conner would have chosen to describe the man who came to greet the boys. Everyone in Watchtower County knew of Hal Jordan, he was almost an urban legend. Hal Jordan was unemployed, and yet he always seemed to be going on extravagant business trips, whenever he did leave his best friend’s house, he always seemed to be joking around, goofing off, and getting into trouble. No one knew how he survived to adulthood. He was also only wearing boxers and a t-shirt, and he clearly hadn’t shaved that morning, not planning on doing anything that day.

“What’s going on here?” Hal Jordan asked.

“Look, he looks like someone killed him,” Bart said.

“Fuck,” Hal Jordan said, “don’t tell anyone I said that in front of you, but fuck, kid you look like shit.”

“Yeah,” Bart agreed.

“Head h’rts,” Conner confessed.

“Well, yeah, you have blood in your hair, I should expect your head hurts,” Hal Jordan pointed out.

“What about the blood all over the rest of him?” Bart asked.

“What do you mean?” Hal Jordan asked.

“You know, the blood, all over him,” Bart said.

Conner shuddered, he had really been trying to forget about that.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hal Jordan said. The police officer with the laundry didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on either.

Conner tentatively reached out, he wrapped a hand covered in goopy half-dried blood around Hal Jordan’s wrist with trembling fingers. He let go and there was a mark, Hal Jordan just looked confused.

“Uh, thanks, kid,” he said, unsure of what else he could say.

“Y’ don’ see that?” Conner asked, both he and Bart were staring at the vague sticky handprint on Hal Jordan’s wrist.

“See what?” Hal Jordan asked.

“That’s so freaky,” Bart said.

“What is?” Hal asked, starting to feel very out of the loop.

“Invisiblood,” Bart said, like it explained anything. “Hey, do you think he’s gonna die?”

Hal Jordan may have been a disaster of a human being, but he was still a grown up. He had seen a fair number of concussions in his time, he’d even suffered from a few himself, he knew what a concussed kid looked like.

“Nah, he’ll be fine, it’s just a concussion, hey, kid, can you look at me?” Conner did, even though the image was a little fuzzy. “Can you remember how you hit your head?”

“Uh-huh,” Conner said.

“Can you tell me how?” Hal Jordan asked.

Conner paused, “fell down some stairs,” he said.

Hal Jordan had also seen his fair share of lies, but he didn’t call the boy out on his. “Okay, that’s fine, let’s see, Bart, you go get some ice, kid, just, sit down, I’m gonna call Barry.”

“No, you can’t do that,” Bart cried a little too loudly. Conner winced. “Grampa Barry will call your parents.”

“Right, forgot about that one, call the kid’s parents, you’re Lois and Clark’s kid, aren’t you?” Hal Jordan noted.

“No, you can’t call his parents,” Bart said.

“Why not?” Hal Jordan asked.

“Because he doesn’t want you to,” Bart replied.

Conner looked up at the depressing excuse for a man with unfocused eyes. “Please?” He begged.

And Hal Jordan crumbled, he didn’t like the way the situation was building up if he was being completely honest. “Okay, I won’t call your parents, not for tonight at least.”

“Thanks,” Conner said.

“We’ll have to hide him from Barry and Iris,” Hal Jordan pointed out.

“He can stay in my room,” Bart decided.

“You’re sure you can keep this a secret?” Hal Jordan asked.

Conner hadn’t even thought about that. Bart Allen wasn’t exactly famous for his ability to keep his mouth shut. But it had slipped Conner’s mind in his concussion-induced stupor. “’ll k’ll you if y’ tell,” he muttered.

“I can keep a secret, promise,” Bart insisted.

“Pinky swear?” Hal Jordan asked.

Bart gasped childishly, Conner would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t so tired.

“Cross my heart,” Bart swore, crossing his heart and then shaking his grandfather’s pinky, he then offered it to Conner.

“We r’lly need t’ do this?” Conner asked.

“If you want me to keep it a secret, we do,” Bart said.

“Fuck,” Conner whispered, and he shook Bart’s pinky. Hal grimaced, worrying he had taught the kid that.

“There, I promised, now I can’t tell anyone, not even Grampa Barry and Gramma Iris,” Bart said.

“Or Wally,” Hal Jordan added.

Bart seemed upset, he scowled, “can’t I tell Wally? Just a little bit?”

“Please,” Conner begged.

Bart drew his lips together and nodded. “Or Wally,” he agreed.

Conner let his shoulders drop a bit.

“Okay.” Hal Jordan clapped his hands together loudly and Conner winced again. “Sorry, Bart, you get ice, kid, get to Bart’s room, I’m gonna go google how to treat a concussion.”

Bart mock-saluted his grandfather, “yessir.” He ran off in the direction of the kitchen.

“You okay to get up those stairs?” Hal Jordan asked.

“’m fine,” Conner agreed.

“Okay, Bart and I will meet you up there in a second.”

Bart got back first, because Hal Jordan had lost his phone under the couch and was having trouble reaching it. Conner was sitting on the corner of Bart’s bed, blinking hard to see if that would fix his vision any. It didn’t

“I have the ice,” Bart exclaimed, and he did. He had a big armful of ice cubes slipping out of his hold and falling all over the floor.

“Y’ hafta put it ‘n a dishrag,” Conner said, remembering now his mother had done it when he or Jon tripped and bruised themselves.

“Oh, okay,” Bart agreed, “hold this.”

He gave Conner his armful of ice to hold and ran off again.

His mother wouldn’t be mad if she saw him, would she? Conner wondered. She wouldn’t get mad at him for going down to the LAUNDRY room, where he wasn’t allowed to go. She wouldn’t be mad that he didn’t go straight home, like he said he would. She wouldn’t be mad that he had hurt himself, again.

No, she wouldn’t get mad. There was nothing to be mad about.

_(Why did you break the rules, Conner?)_

She would be livid.

“I got the rag,” Bart called when he returned. Then he froze. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Conner’s throat felt tight when he tried to answer, so he didn’t.

“Grampa Hal,” Bart called behind him, “now he’s crying.”

Was he? Conner would have touched his face to check, but his arms were still full of ice. Bart approached to help with that, transferring the ice to the dish towel he had collected and then holding it on top of Conner’s head, which wasn’t where the injury was, but he was trying his best.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“M-m’ mom’s gonna kill me,” Conner sobbed, “’nd m’ dad’s gonna be mad I m’de h’r ‘pset.”

“They aren’t allowed to do that, it’s illegal,” Bart said.

“Wh-who f’ckin’ cares?” Conner asked.

“The police?” Bart suggested.

Conner laughed a little, “I puked on the p’lice.”

Bart’s eyes went wide. “All of them?”

And it made his head hurt, but Conner really laughed at that. “Nah, j’st one.”

“Oh, was it my Grampa?” Bart asked.

Conner kept laughing, Bart didn’t really know why.

“Okay,” Hal Jordan said when he finally reached the scene with his phone, “so, number one recommendation that everyone seems to agree on is “call a doctor”, but I guess that’s out, they’d tell his parents.”

“He says his mom’s gonna kill him,” Bart said.

Hal Jordan looked to Conner for confirmation. He wasn’t laughing anymore, but he didn’t otherwise confirm or deny Bart’s claim.

“Well,” Hal Jordan continued, deciding that was a can of worms he didn’t want to touch, “it also says you’re allowed to take Tylenol for the pain, and really, you should just rest, so, take some of these and a nap.

Hal Jordan offered Conner two children’s Tylenol and watched to make sure he swallowed them.

“Wait, is he supposed to stay in my bed?” Bart asked.

“That’s the plan,” Hal Jordan agreed.

“But he’ll get it all gross,” Bart whined.

“Too bad, we can’t put him on the couch or Barry and Iris would see him,” Hal Jordan said, “you brought him here, he’s staying here.”

“Where am I supposed to sleep tonight?” Bart asked.

“The floor,” Hal Jordan suggested.

“But I don’t wanna,” Bart said.

“That’s too bad, now c’mon, scram and let the kid sleep,” Hal Jordan ordered, grabbing Bart by the back of his shirt and tugging him to the door.

“Okay, bye Conner,” Bart said.

“Bye Bart,” Conner echoed. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as everyone thought.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t think he would have been able to, but the Tylenol Hal Jordan had given him must have been the sleeping kind. When he next opened his eyes, it was to a face full of Bart Allen.

Conner cried out.

“Shh, ow,” Bart cried when Conner kneed him in the gut. Bart rolled and fell off the bed in pain.

“Bart? Are you okay?” A woman called from downstairs.

Conner’s eyes went wide, Bart raised a finger to his lips and crawled over to the door, opening it just a crack.

“I’m fine,” Bart shouted, “I just fell off the bed.”

“Are you okay,” the woman asked.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Bart said.

“Okay,” she said and then she fell silent. Bart closed the door.

“That was my Gramma Iris,” Bart said.

“Bart, what are you doing?” Conner hissed.

“I wanted to see if you were awake,” Bart said, he settled himself on the floor facing Conner. First, he crossed his legs, then he uncrossed them, then he crossed them again. He found a stray string on the hem on his shirt, so he started playing with it, twirling and untwirling it around his finger.

“And you couldn’t have just said my name or something?” Conner asked.

“I did, you didn’t answer,” Bart said.

“Because I was asleep,” Conner said. 

“Well, I thought I should start poking you anyways, just to make sure, and then you woke up,” Bart said. Conner was wrong, Bart was worse than everyone thought.

“Thanks Bart,” Conner sat up, there was no point in trying to sleep if Bart didn’t want him to sleep. “What time is it?”

“Eight thirty-four,” Bart replied, “you missed curfew.”

_(Curfew is at seven. Be home by six. Why did you break the rules, Conner?)_

“Are you gonna cry again?” Bart asked.

“No,” Conner spat.

“You looked like you were gonna cry again.”

“I’m not gonna cry.”

“Okay,” Bart agreed. “Your parents called Grampa Barry, they’re calling everyone looking for you.”

“You didn’t tell them I’m here, did you?” Conner asked.

“I didn’t even tell Wally,” Bart proudly declared.

“Good,” Conner said.

For a split second there was complete silence. Conner just watched Bart play with the string.

“Grampa Hal says your parents pushed you down the stairs, because they’re bad people, and they don’t like you very much, is that true?” Bart asked.

Conner gawked. “He said what?”

“Your parents pushed you down the stairs, and that’s how you got hurt, is that what happened?” Bart asked again.

Conner had heard many words used to describe his parents, “bad” had never been one of them.

“Of course not,” Conner cried, “well, not the not liking me part, but they never pushed me down the stairs.”

“That’s what Grampa Hal says he thinks happened,” Bart shrugged, clearly not caring very much either way, he was much more focused on his string.

“My parents have never physically hurt me, why would he even think that?” Conner asked.

“Because you showed up with a concussion telling us not to tell your parents and then you started crying about how your mom was gonna kill you?” Bart suggested.

“I was exaggerating,” Conner said, “that isn’t what happened at all.”

“What did happen?” Bart asked.

“I told you, I fell down the stairs,” Conner repeated.

Bart laughed and looked up from his string. “Even I’m not falling for that story, what really happened?”

Conner paused. There was a feeling he got from Bart. Bart was like him. He and Bart were a part of something. It would be safe to tell him. “If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone, not your grandparents, not Wally, not anybody.”

“Pinky swear,” Bart said, offering his finger for the second time that day.

Conner took it more readily this time. “And you aren’t allowed to laugh either, I swear, this is what happened,” he added before letting go.

“Okay, just tell me,” Bart pleaded.

So, Conner told Bart everything. From the driveway to the LAUNDRY room. About the clown and the clone, he shared everything that scared him that day. And Bart listened with eyes wide and mouth agape, twirling the string absently around his finger until he cut off circulation, then he unwound it.

“And that really happened?” Bart asked when Conner finished his tale.

“I pinky promised that it did, didn’t I?” Conner said.

“Wow,” Bart gaped, “there’s really a monster in this town.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Conner agreed.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I want to help, there’s nothing else fun to do around here.”

“Bart,” Conner said, channeling his mother as best he could, “this thing isn’t fun, it’s scary, and it’s dangerous, I don’t ever want to see it again.”

“But you have to do something, after all, you’re the only one who’s ever seen It, what if It goes after someone else? What if It comes after me?” Bart asked.

“Or Jon,” Conner quietly agreed.

_(Look out for Jon. Conner.)_

He could at least still do that one.

“You’re wrong,” Conner decided.

“But we have to do something,” Bart insisted.

“No, you’re right about that part, but I’m not the only person who’s seen It,” Conner said.

“You aren’t?”

“No, I’m not,” Conner said, “and if you’re serious about doing something about this, we should probably talk to her too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, listen... Jay Garrick has Alan Scott, Barry Allen has Hal Jordan, Wally West has Kyle Rayner, Bart Allen is the only person to have held the mantle of the Flash (I know we don't talk about that, I'm sorry) who doesn't have his own Green Lantern, and if he can't have a Green Lantern, then the least he deserves in a grandpa lantern. That might change soon with the Teen Lantern slated to join the Young Justice team, but that hadn't been announced when I wrote this, and even so, you can pry grandpa Hal from my cold dead hands. Also, don't fight sewer clowns if you have a concussion, call a doctor. And with this chapter, I finally have all four of my main kids on the board, which means things can really pick up. I hope you enjoyed it.


	10. What We Saw

Tim parked his bike in front of Ms. Prince’s house during the time we all called daytime, but was technically still morning, but only technically, so no one really cared. He kicked out the bike stand and ran up the driveway. He knew better than to risk upsetting the Kents next door, knowing they would be distraught and most likely wouldn’t know anything. He knocked on the door three times.

“Hello?” The scruffy looking girl who just moved in two stressful days ago asked when she came to the door.

“Hi, I’m Tim Drake,” Tim said, “I’m looking for Conner Kent.”

“Yeah, you and half the County,” Cassie scoffed, “I haven’t seen him, and neither has Diana, sorry.”

“Did you see him at all yesterday?” Tim asked.

“I saw him through the window, he was playing with his brother, drawing with chalk,” Cassie recalled, speaking slowly to make sure she didn’t mess up on any details. “The last time we saw him he was leaving with his brother, Diana said he was bringing him to his babysitter’s place.”

“Did you see anything odd before he left? Anything, I don’t know, weird? At all?” Tim asked.

“What do you mean by weird?” Cassie asked, she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe in a failed attempt to make herself seem less interested.

“Just, weird, abnormal, supernatural almost, look, I know this sounds strange, I would ask his brother, but I’m sure he’s emotionally compromised, and that means you’re the last kid who might have seen him,” Tim said.

“What does it matter that I’m a kid?” Cassie wondered.

“The grown-ups don’t quite see the same things we seem to see, you know?” Tim said. “If you don’t understand, you probably haven’t seen anything, and I’ll leave you alone.”

But Cassie did know what he meant, and Tim knew she did the moment he said it and a she got a strange sort of look on her face, a look Tim recognized all too well.

“Why are you asking? Are you friends with him?” Cassie asked suspiciously.

“Not really, but there’s something wrong in Watchtower County, and for some reason, only the kids can see It, I think Conner saw It too before he went missing,” Tim said.

“Do.” Cassie swallowed a heavy ball of saliva before she could manage to say another word. “Do you think It killed him?”

“No,” Tim said, and he gave her a firm glare for even suggesting it.

“How do you know?” Cassie asked.

“Because It doesn’t kill people, It takes them somewhere, and if It’s taken Conner too, we have to do something,” Tim said.

“Where does it take them?” Cassie asked.

“I don’t know yet, I’m hoping Conner can help me,” Tim said.

“When.” Cassie’s throat tightened again, but she choked her words out anyways. “When I saw It, I thought it was going to kill me.”

“So, you have seen something?” Tim asked.

Cassie pursed her lips and looked over her shoulder to make sure Diana was still on the phone, using her teaching contacts to try to find any trace of their most recent missing child. Diana, the Kents, and Wayne had come to an arrangement, with their being good friends to each other. She would call around asking if anyone had seen anything while the Kents would wait by the phone in case it rang with any new information, and Wayne slowly drove around hoping to find anything. The Kents wished they had something more proactive they could do in their search but keeping the phonelines clear was about all they could do; Prince and Wayne’s actions were most likely equally futile. Kids didn’t usually turn up when they went missing in Watchtower county.

“Wait here,” Cassie instructed when she heard Diana greet another neighbour. Watchtower County somehow seemed to have become so much bigger and with so many more places to hide now that there was a kid missing in it.

Tim nodded, and Cassie ran up the stairs. He rocked quietly on his heels while he waited for her to return.

She came back with a mostly pink piece of paper.

“This flew in my window on my first night here,” Cassie said, offering the paper.

Tim’s face suddenly felt very hot and his hands felt very sweaty. “Was it folded like a paper airplane?”

“Yeah, how did you know?” Cassie asked.

“I sent that,” Tim replied.

Cassie stared. “You did what?”

“I just wanted to warn you that something was out there,” Tim defended his admittedly very poor decision.

“Any you couldn’t just knock on my door during the daytime and warn me? You nearly scared me to death,” Cassie demanded.

Tim turned his embarrassed face to his feet. “I don’t like talking to people so much,” he confessed.

“Well I don’t like getting creepy letters in the middle of the night so much, you jackass,” Cassie spat, “here, take your shitty airplane and get out of my face.”

“Wait,” Tim cried when Cassie shoved the piece of paper in his hands, finally getting a proper look at it. “I didn’t write this.”

“What do you mean? You literally just said you sent it,” Cassie said.

“I sent you a warning, I didn’t write this,” Tim said, showing Cassie the big red “I  Watchtower County” on the paper.

“It wrote that,” Cassie said. “When It came to me two nights ago, It left that, as a sort of warning, or a message, or a threat, I don’t know what it means.”

“I do,” Tim said.

“You’re lying,” Cassie said, “you’re just trying to freak me out, cause you’re a sick creep, you want to drive me crazy with your twisted paranoia.”

“It isn’t paranoia if there’s really something out to get you,” Tim said.

Cassie was suspicious. Maybe there was no clown. Maybe this stupid kid made her paranoid and the rest was just a figment of her imagination. Maybe he was just playing her for a fool. But deep in her gut, she knew that there was an equal, probably even greater, even though she hated to admit it, possibility. Maybe there really was something out there. Watching. Just like he said.

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just didn’t want you to be caught unprepared and end up like Conner, or any of the others, and I don’t want anyone else to end up like them either.”

Cassie paused. Maybe his intentions were good, she supposed.

“You said them, there are others? Besides Conner?” Cassie asked.

“Years more,” Tim solemnly revealed, “come with me, I’ll explain everything.”

“Shouldn’t I stay with Diana?” Cassie wondered, “you said it yourself: don’t ever be alone.”

“You won’t be alone, you’ll be with me,” Tim encouraged.

Still, Cassie lingered.

“You aren’t exactly the ideal bodyguard against a killer clown,” Cassie pointed out.

“It doesn’t kill,” Tim said, any humour once again sucked from his tone. “The kids are just missing.”

“Right, missing, sorry.” Cassie suspected there was a can of worms there that she didn’t want to open.

“Besides, it’s not just going to be the two of us where we’re going, I have a friend who’s sort of the expert on this thing,” Tim said.

“Where are we going?” Cassie herself didn’t notice that she said “are” instead of “would be”, but Tim noticed. Her mind was already made up.

“The library, it will all make sense there, the message It gave you, the other kids, all of it,” Tim promised.

Cassie pursed her lips. Then she bit on the bottom one a little. Well, she thought, she always had been looking for an adventure.

“Okay,” she agreed, “I’m in.”

Tim smiled with relief. “Let’s go than.”

“Alright,” Cassie turned behind her to shout before closing the door, “Diana, I’m going to the library with a friend.”

“Be careful, Cassandra,” Diana called back, covering the phone with one hand as she did so.

“I will,” Cassie said, and then she closed the door.

“My sister’s name is Cassandra,” Tim observed.

“Oh.” Cassie realized that she had failed to introduce herself. “Yeah, Cassandra Sandsmark, but everyone calls me Cassie.”

“Cassie,” Tim echoed, “alright, tell me everything about two nights ago.”

Approximately ten minutes after the pair left, with Cassie awkwardly straddling the back of Tim’s bike, there was a knock on the door.

“Hi,” Bart Allen said when Diana opened the door. “I’m looking for the girl with the bad haircut.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify the line at the end, I think it's an issue of Teen Titans where Cassie described her younger self as "the girl with the bad haircut wearing t-shirts two sizes too big" which is honestly such a big mood, like, me too, so I ran with it. All the kids are finally coming together, it's great. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	11. The Kids in the Library

A phone rang.

Or, it tried to, but it was picked up the moment it began to make noise.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Lois, it’s Hal.”

“Oh, look, Hal, I’m really sorry, but this isn’t a good time.” Lane waved for her husband to relax when he had jumped at the ringing.

“I know that, what do you think I’m calling about?”

Lane’s breath caught in her throat. “You know where Conner is?”

“I might.”

“Please, is he okay? Where is he?” Lane signaled for Kent to stand up again and join her. Kent moved carefully so as not to disturb Jon was still napping right next to his father on the couch, having exhausted himself by sobbing every time his eyes opened. Ordinarily, Kent and Lane would have brought him to his room, but the couple would be damned before they let their other son out of their sight.

“Look, being totally honest here, I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“What do you mean? Hal? Where is my boy?” Lane asked.

“Listen, before I tell you anything, I need you to tell me that you have never even considered hurting that kid.”

“Excuse me?” Lane’s voice cracked a little at the accusation.

“Lois, you and Clark are good people, I’ve known you for a long time, but when a kid’s scared of his own parents, there’s usually a reason.”

“Are you accusing us of abusing our son?” Lane demanded. Kent’s eyes expanded with shock.

“What else am I supposed to think? The kid shows up bleeding out the back of his head, concussed out of his mind, lying about where he got hurt, and sobbing, begging me not to call his parents because you were gonna kill him, what else could that possibly sound like?”

“Conner told you not to call us?” Lois asked.

“Lois, the kid was terrified that you were gonna come for him, Bart and I promised not to tell anyone.”

“Where is he now? Is he still there?” Lois wondered.

“I’m risking my relationship with Bart just calling you right now, I’m not telling you anything until you can convince me that neither you or Clark have ever even thought of laying a hand on that kid.”

“Hal,” Lois said, and she forced a sigh to let all her rage calm down the tiniest bit. “I promise you, neither Clark nor myself have ever hurt our son, please, we just want to know he’s okay, and to bring him home.”

Tim parked his bike outside the library. Cassie supposed a comfort of having a beaten-up child’s bike in a small town was that no one would try to steal it, because Tim didn’t bother with a lock, he just kicked the stand up right next to the stairs.

It was a big library on the verge of being pretty. Mostly, the obvious lack of funding going towards the upkeep of the exterior was the flaw in its aesthetic attractiveness. This was because what funding the library was given was all funneled directly into the purchase of new books for the already-crammed shelves rather than a much-needed spruce-up. It was a relatively stubby building, two stories tall, just like every other building in Watchtower County, making for a rather drab skyline. It had dirty brick walls and large dusty windows, although there was no graffiti, since no one would dare graffiti Barbara Gordon’s library. The stairs leading up to the heavy doors were cement with a wobbly, rusty looking railing dividing two sides to the stairs. The words “PUBLIC LIBRARY” were more yellow than white after decades of exposure to the elements, right above the big oak doors.

“Come on,” Tim encouraged when he caught Cassie simply staring from the bottom of the stairs.

“Coming,” Cassie agreed.

Tim had to pull with both hands to get the doors open, they were so heavy, and he was so small, much shorter than Cassie, and she was a girl. He even had to stand on his tiptoes a little to look over the desk and speak to the assistant at the check-out desk.

“Hi Charlotte,” Tim greeted the assistant as if he knew her well.

The freckly redheaded teen didn’t even bother to look up from the phone in her hands, which she could get away with since none of her supervisors were watching and there was no one looking for help at the moment. “Hey Tim,” she said, she offered a grin at least.

“Tell Barbara I’m waiting for her in the usual study room, tell her to bring all the Joker files from the beginning,” Tim instructed.

“Sure,” Charlie agreed. She groped around awkwardly for the library phone while still intently looking at something on her cell with a goofy smile.

“Thanks,” Tim said. “This way,” he told Cassie.

“Is Barbara your expert friend?” Cassie asked.

“Yup,” Tim agreed, “she’s the head librarian around here, she’s been hunting this thing ever since she was a teenager.”

Cassie had a very clear image in her mind of what Barbara the librarian looked like. And hunting since she was a teenager meant that she had been hunting for a very long time.

“If she’s been hunting It for so long, why hasn’t she killed it yet?” Cassie asked.

“Because she can’t,” Tim said.

“Why not?” Cassie wondered.

“She grew up, she can’t even see It anymore, let alone kill it,” Tim explained.

“And that’s why she has you,” Cassie realized.

“Yeah, I guess so, although, I have my own reasons for hunting It, it’s not like she’s exploiting me against my will or anything,” Tim said.

“Okay,” Cassie said. But the image of a crusty old librarian sending a twelve-year-old to do her incredibly dangerous and possibly deadly errands for her didn’t quite seem right to Cassie’s imagination.

“This is our study room,” Tim said, leading Cassie into the small study room permanently reserved for himself and Barbara. It was spotless, because even if no one else ever looked at the information they needed, Barbara’s pride as a librarian kept her from leaving the study room a mess of their research. As it stood, it was one of the study rooms on the first floor, which were generally known as the larger rooms for study groups, where the second floor provided cubicles for private study. There was a table in the middle big enough to seat about eight people assuming none of them needed an unreasonable amount of desk space, a half-full water filter was in one corner, and a powered off smart board on one wall, on another was a missing poster for Greta Hayes. Those were all over town.

“Cozy,” Cassie observed.

“Sit down, Barbara will be here soon, she’s just getting our stuff,” Tim invited.

Cassie sat. Tim sat next to her. At the front entrance of the library, the door opened again. Charlie did glance up from her phone this time. The library wasn’t very popular among the children of Watchtower County. Especially not unaccompanied by an adult. There were a few kids who genuinely enjoyed reading and came around often, and Charlie knew them by heart. It was unusual to see three unfamiliar faces in one day. 

“Hi there.” Everyone could recognize Bart Allen.

“Hey,” Charlie replied.

“We’re looking for a girl with a bad haircut,” Bart said.

“Around our age, short blond hair, she’s about this tall.” The other boy, who was wearing horribly muddy clothes and sunglasses, even though he was inside, raised his and about halfway between Bart’s height and his own.

For a moment, Charlie considered kicking the kid out, in case he made a mess, but the mud was all dried, and kicking him out would mean causing a scene, which would mean more work for her, so she let her eyes return to her phone.

“She went to study room 108A, it’s that way,” Charlie said, and she pointed.

“Thank you,” Bart said, and he led his friend in the direction she pointed. He made extra careful not to meet Charlie’s eyes, even behind his sunglasses, but Charlie just let it be.

The boys didn’t bother knocking when they opened the door to the study room, although they were surprised to find the girl they were looking for wasn’t alone.

“Wow, her haircut really is bad,” Bart said.

“Is that blood on your clothes?” Cassie asked.

“We need to talk to you,” Conner announced.

“Conner?” Tim wondered, recognizing the boy he had sat behind in class for the past three years, even behind the sunglasses.

And then the kids erupted into a rather comical attempt at conversing with each other. Conner and Bart wanted to know what Cassie had seen, Tim and Cassie wanted to know what Conner had seen, Bart wanted to say hello to Tim (who Bart swore was a really good friend), Cassie wasn’t quite sure who Bart was or what his problem with her haircut was, Conner didn’t know why either of them were in the library to begin with, Tim wanted to know where Conner had been for the past several hours, but none of them could understand each other because they all wanted to ask their questions first.

“You know.” All the kids jumped and fell silent at the sudden voice behind Conner and Bart, nearly shouting to ensure that she was heard over their rambling. “A little warning would be nice before you decided to throw a party in my library.”

The woman in the doorway wasn’t quite what anyone had expected. She was somewhere in her early twenties, with red hair that fell to her chin. She wore thick, boxy glasses and was sitting in a wheelchair with a stack of books on her lap.

“Barbara,” Tim greeted the woman.

“That’s Barbara?” Cassie wondered.

“Of course, Barbara, this is Cassie, Conner, and Bart.” Tim tried to hide a confused expression when he said the last two names, especially the last one. “Cassie, Conner, Bart, this is Barbara Gordon.”

“Okay,” Conner agreed, “but why?”

“Why am I in my own library?” Gordon asked, cocking an eyebrow at the idiocy of the question. “The better question is why are you here, do you have any idea how many phone calls I’ve got asking about you?”

“All right then,” Conner gave in and turned to the subject of his next question, “who are you?”

“Me?” Tim echoed.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve sat behind you in class for the last three years,” Tim said.

“Have you really?”

“Yes,” Tim cried.

“I have no idea who you are, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before in my life,” Conner confessed.

“I’m Tim Drake, my dad’s best friends with your dad, I see you literally all the time,” Tim said.

“Sorry, I still don’t recognize you at all.”

“Right,” Gordon interrupted, “and why are you here again?”

“Barbara, he saw It,” Tim explained.

“I saw what?” Conner asked.

“You know, It, in the basement at Kory Anders’ apartment complex,” Tim said.

Conner froze like a deer in headlights. “How do you know that?”

“You threw up in my brother’s laundry, he said something scared you down there, but when he got down there himself, there was just a little flooding, it was a pretty open-shut case,” Tim explained.

“Oh,” Conner said, “I didn’t mean to do that, tell him I’m sorry.”

“I will.”

Gordon nodded with understanding. “And what about the other two?”

“Cassie’s seen It as well, I’m not really sure what Bart’s doing here,” Tim confessed.

“It sounded like it would be fun,” Bart admitted.

“I see,” Gordon said, “well, have a seat, all of you, I’ll let you two tell me your stories first, then I’ll fill you in on everything I know.”

Conner and Cassie both paled several shades at the idea of having to relive their trauma a third time. Cassie ultimately volunteered to go first once Gordon had settled at the head of the table, leaving Tim to her immediate right and Cassie to his right, and with Bart to her left and Conner next to him. Gordon moved her books around, ordering them for when it was her turn while also listening intently. Cassie volunteered to share her story first, being by far the less traumatised of the two of them, especially now that she knew half of the event was just Tim being a well-meaning idiot. She told both her stories, in the car and at midnight. Kon had no choice but to go next, he took lots of pauses and everyone was very patient. When they were finished, they turned to Gordon, who had been humming quietly the whole time.

“Alright,” Gordon said, leaning forwards in her chair, the kids all leaned forwards in anticipation. “Before I start telling you everything I know, I just want to let you kids know, you’re under no obligation to hunt this thing, if this is too much for you, you can quit, just stay with an adult until the summer’s over and you’ll have nothing to worry about, It will be gone by September, if you don’t want to do this, you can quit at any time.”

The kids looked from one to the other, as if expecting one of them to leave the room right there. Gordon waited to see if any of them would leave as well.

“Okay,” she said when a good minute passed, and the kids were all still in their seats. “You’re all in this then.”

“Just tell us what this thing is and how to kill it,” Conner said.

“I don’t know,” Gordon confessed, “all I’m sure of, is that we need to kill it, and I say we, but even if I could see it, there isn’t a lot of fighting I can do from this chair.”

“So, you want us to do the real work and kill your monster for you,” Cassie said.

“No, I want you to kill our monster for you, and for all the kids that are going to come after you, because this thing, this monster isn’t going to just go away, and it’s been free to reign for too long without anyone doing anything about it, if you don’t want to save this town, I already told you how to save yourselves, so don’t waste my time,” Gordon said.

“Sorry,” Cassie murmured.

“Alright, then if I can talk, because you kids all came to me for my help and I would like to give it if you don’t mind, as far as we know, this all starts nearly four hundred years ago back in 1,637,” Gordon began.

Bart raised his hand. Gordon gave Tim a look. A look that said: “really? This is the best you could find?” She gestured vaguely at Bart. “Yes, Bart, go ahead.”

“Could we maybe not start so long ago? That sounds really boring,” Bart said.

Gordon stared for a moment. “Sure thing, Bart, just give me a second to rearrange history for you so you don’t have to be bored.”

“Okay, thanks,” Bart said.

Gordon stared harder. Trying to comprehend how the child in front of her was a real human, and not some bad tv character. “If you don’t stop talking, you’ll be the one in a wheelchair, do you understand me?”

“Uh, I—”

“Ah-ah-ah, I said stop,” Gordon cut in before Bart could make her headache any stronger. “Now, as I was saying, as far as we know, it started in 1,637.”

“I thought you were going to fix that?” Bart said.

Conner thwapped Bart over the back of the head before Barbara could snap his neck with her bare hands.

“It started in 1,637, and I know, that was a long time ago, but that’s when it started or maybe it was around even before that, but our first evidence of this thing’s existence dates to the summer of 1,637.” Gordon opened the first book of her stack and she turned it around, so the kids could see. “There were ninety-one people who signed the charter to form Watchtower County, but they didn’t live here long before they all vanished that same.”

“Wait,” Cassie paused Gordon’s story, looking at a picture of the charter-signing, she pointed at one face in particular with a trembling finger. “Is that what I think It is?”

All the other children followed her finger to the figure in the picture. A chill ran down four spines at once.

“Do you see It?” Gordon asked.

“Right there, he’s half hiding,” Cassie agreed.

“Don’t be scared,” Gordon said, “It can’t hurt you while I’m watching, It just wants to scare you.”

Cassie blinked, and the image was gone. Just like the image in the driveway, there were a few lines giving off an illusion of facial features if one were squinting really hard in the dark, but she was left wondering how she had seen it as the clown at all.

“That’s most likely our first sighting of It, and ever since then, every three years, during summer, It comes back, Watchtower County has six times the national average for unsolved disappearances, it skyrockets in summer every three years.”

“And I thought that this was a small town,” Cassie grumbled.

“It is, because everyone’s dead,” Conner teased.

“They aren’t dead,” Tim snapped. “They’re just missing, right?”

Pleading blue eyes turned to Gordon, and she knew what was probable deep in her gut. “We don’t know what It does with its victims, we just know they disappear, without a trace,” she said. Because she didn’t have the nerve to tell him: “he’s dead.”

Conner moved to say it himself, but Cassie kicked him under the table to keep him quiet. Conner gave her a confused look, she glared, Tim sunk a little in his seat.

“When I saw It the second time, the balloon and the letter both had I heart Watchtower County written on them, Tim said you could explain that?” Cassie asked.

“Right, that’s a pretty simple one,” Gordon fished around for another book and flipped for the page she needed. “In 1907 we had the very first Watchtower County Fair, as I’m sure you can guess it took place during summer, all the kids who showed up got balloons that said I heart Watchtower County, there were all different colours, they tried to pass it off as just a coincidence, but every single kid that chose a red balloon, and as you can imagine, there were a lot of them, they went missing that summer, and only them. Not many people know about the pattern, because not many people kept track of the balloons, and they couldn’t find any way to connect it to the actual disappearances, but it’s like a warning, a red balloon means that It’s coming for you.”

“So, It’s coming for me?” Cassie wondered.

“It’s coming for all of you, now that you know it’s out there, It will do everything it can to keep you from surviving the summer, you may have gotten away once, but if you aren’t prepared, you won’t be so lucky next time” Gordon said.

“Then how come you’re still here?” Bart asked.

“Didn’t she say you aren’t supposed to talk?” Conner wondered.

“It’s fine,” Gordon said, “you’re right, I encountered It myself six years ago, I was fifteen at the time. It was on my way home from the library, I took a shortcut through the park, and I was crossing the little bridge, you know the one.” All but Cassie nodded. “Once, for background, I need to tell you, when I was thirteen, my dad took me to the courthouse, my dad’s a cop, see, and I always wanted to see more of what he did. While I was there, this man, guilty as anything and with no descent lawyer to give him a shot, he tried to make a run for it, somehow he got a gun off a bailiff, and he pointed it right at me. Then the guards shot him. They shot him seven times in total, all right in the chest. He was standing so close, his blood got all over me, all sticky and warm.” Conner rubbed a self-conscious hand over his arm. He knew what that felt like too. “I saw that man climb out of the river, seven bullet holes and all, he had his gun, and he pointed it right at me. He shot me, I fell off the bridge, I screamed, and I was lucky, it was actually Tim’s father, Mr. Wayne who happened to be walking through the park, he ran and jumped in right after me. But he wasn’t fast enough that I didn’t see It, waiting under the bridge, It was there, waiting for me. It offered me a balloon, asked me if I wanted to float too. I spent the rest of that summer in the hospital, or with my father, adjusting to this chair, It never had another opportunity to get to me, and the next time It came around, I was eighteen, and I was too old for It to want me anymore.”

Gordon had a far-off look in her eyes, and her eyebrows furrowed with every word, like she was trying to recite a tragedy that had happened to someone else on autopilot.

“Listen,” Conner said, Gordon’s eyes focused again. “I’m really sorry and all, but you still haven’t told us how to find It, or how to kill It, how can we be sure that we’re the last kids that ever have to see this thing?”

“Right, well, as I told you before, I don’t really know how to fight It, I only met It once, and obviously, I didn’t do so great,” Gordon pointed out, “but Tim and I have been working on the where, and we have it narrowed down to only a few more places.”

“Where?” Conner asked.

Gordon opened her mouth to begin her list. There was a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Bart volunteered.

He hopped up to open the door. Charlie was standing there.

“Miss Gordon?” Charlie asked, carefully looking around the room before spotting her boss and supervisor.

“Yes?” Gordon said. “What’s wrong, Charlie?”

Charlie never interrupted Gordon when she was working with Tim.

“There’s a woman at the front desk who wants to speak to you, she’s pretty upset,” Charlie said.

“I’m coming, Tim, you take over.”

“Sure thing.”

Gordon wheeled herself out of the room after Charlie. The door closed with a click and the smartboard lit up with a blue glow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally we have all the kids together. It only took a third of the story to get here. I'm pretty sure the kids are actually a little bit older than Charlotte in canon, but she was really just a cameo because I wanted a teenage library assistant and she fit the bill. Barbara was actually one of the main reasons why I decided to make It attack every 3 years instead of every 27, because I wanted her to have had an encounter, but it would have to be in the past and couldn't make her that old, I think it all worked out pretty well anyways, the three-year-gap really accents Tim's unhealthy coping mechanisms and denial of death. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	12. Oranges and Lemons

The smartboard lit up, and Bart’s hands flew in the air.

“Bart, what did you do?” Conner asked.

“Nothing,” Bart swore.

“Then why do you have your hands up in the air like you did something?” Cassie accused.

“To prove I didn’t do anything,” Bart said.

“It’s fine, probably just an electrical surge or something,” Tim assured to calm his peers down. Gordon hadn’t quite reached that part of the program, but panic was dangerous. Panic led to fear. Tim stood up to manually turn off the smartboard. Once he was on his two feet, the blinds fell shut with a harsh snap.

Cassie gasped with surprise.

“It’s here,” Conner whispered.

“What’s here?” Bart asked.

“It,” Conner replied.

A soft sound filled the room from all sides.

“This is the song,” Cassie said.

“I heard it too,” Conner agreed.

“Oranges and Lemons,” Tim said.

“Yes please, I’m starving,” Bart tried to joke, his voice only shaking a little bit at the very end.

“No, that’s the song,” Tim explained, “it’s an old British nursery rhyme.”

He was met with blank eyes.

“You know; Oranges and lemons, /Say the bells of St. Clement’s,” Tim recited, awkwardly singing along to the chill of the music box sound in a quivering voice that was mediocre at best.

“You owe me five farthings, /Say the bells of St. Martin’s,” a voice replied. It was a young boy’s voice, no older than the children themselves. It echoed through the room as if it had been dragged through half a dozen auto tuning programs it was so unhinged and unnatural. The smartboard flicked off and the room was dark excepting the slivers of light coming from under the door and through the blinds. The kids didn’t even think about it as they all drifted to stand where Barbara’s chair had been only moments before.

“You’ve made It angry now,” Bart said.

“When will you pay me? /Say the bells at Old Bailey,” the boy’s voice sang.

The projector turned on again. There was a picture on the screen of a family on a picnic one sunny day several years ago. The whole family had dark hair, but they also gave off a slight visual implication that they weren’t actually related by blood. The photograph was candid. The mother had her sunglasses up on her forehead, and she was looking over her eldest son’s shoulder to look at the magazine he seemed to be more interested in than actually spending time with his family, the only daughter in the family was showing an enormous frog she had caught with her bare hands to the brother next to her, the father had one hand on his second son’s shoulder, the one grinning at the fat frog, and in the other arm he held his youngest, who couldn’t have been older than four and was fast asleep on his shoulder. They were a beautiful family of six.

“When I grow rich, /Say the bells at Shoreditch,” the boy’s voice sang.

The image of the family disappeared. It returned a moment later, slightly closer and slightly off-centre. It clicked off again. It clicked on again.

“When will that be? /Say the bells of Stepney,” the voice kept singing.

The kids could tell where the image was going by now. It was narrowing in on the second boy. Their age, give or take a year. With each click driving them closer, the   
image changed slightly. So slightly that the kids didn’t even notice until the fourth of fifth click, when the image was so narrowed, the rest of the family’s faces were omitted, and the changes were so great from the original image it couldn’t be ignored. The boy’s face paled, his entertained grin faded. The hand on his shoulder drifted from the protective grip on his shoulder, and as it drifted, the hand changed itself. Once the hand was separated from the father’s face, the suit turned from a classic black to a deep purple, the hand itself was narrow and bony, wrapped in a white glove. The hand drifted.

“I do not know, /Says the great bell at Bow,” the voice began to flicker, the sound of the music box overwhelming it.

The hand moved from the boy’s shoulder to his throat. And then the hand squeezed.

“Here comes a candle to light you to bed,” the voice choked out.

The boy’s eyes were wide with fear. His face turned red.

“And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!”

The kids jumped when there was a scream from their own number.

“Don’t touch him!” Tim shrieked before with a strength that the other kids didn’t think him capable of, he hurtled a chair at the smartboard.

The screen cracked and shattered on impact. The rest of the kids hadn’t even notice Tim was sobbing before he brought attention to himself.

“Tim?” Conner quietly said, “are you okay.”

“The music,” Cassie realized before Tim could reply.

They all listened closer. Oranges and Lemons was still playing.

Cracked plastic fell away from the smartboard screen, leaving a gaping black hole that shouldn’t have been there. From the hole there came familiar fingers of a narrow and bony hand, all wrapped in a white glove. The hand tore the smartboard away until there was room for another hand to start tearing at the other side of the smartboard like it was unwrapping the paper on a birthday gift, and the kids were trapped in the box. The bony hands ripped apart the screen until they could all see It’s face. In the white makeup with the red lipstick and the green hair and those big yellow eyes.

It laughed at them, shrill and awful as it contorted itself out of the screen. Squeezing so that it’s shoulders could fit through. It stood so tall It couldn’t stand at all, crouching with its head on the ceiling.

“Time to float,” It said, and then It lunged for them.

On instinct the kids scattered. Tim grabbed Cassie’s wrist and dragged her to one corner of the room. Conner darted off towards the other. Bart ducked under the table, dodging under It to make a break from the door. All he had to open the door and have anyone standing within sight. Then they could be safe. It didn’t even need to try to reach around and grab Bart by his long hair before he could reach.

“Bart!” Cassie cried.

It pulled Bart close so that he could smell it’s heavy iron breath. “Why aren’t you laughing anymore?” It asked.

It swung Bart around in a circle once and hurtled him towards Tim and Cassie, he hit the wall right above them with a painful slam. It turned it’s yellow gaze to the one who had unintentionally separated himself from the group.

“Why did you break the rules, Conner?”

“I…” Conner couldn’t answer, he shivered, and his eyes watered, and he felt like he was drowning all over again when It grinned at him.

“Conner move!” Tim shouted.

It grinned wider. It’s head turned a full 180 degrees, and his body followed only after he had turned to face Tim.

It crawled forwards more quickly than even Bart could have reacted to, It crouched right over of him and It didn’t say anything at all. There was nowhere to run anymore. Tim was in a corner. His mouth was dry, he was still crying, and he could feel his knees just begging to collapse, Bart was still reeling on the floor, Conner was shaking in his own corner. It placed a huge bony hand on his shoulder that covered his entire upper arm, It’s hand began to move. Cassie stood up. Fingers wrapped around Tim’s throat one by one. Five fingers began to squeeze, gentle at first.

Cassie ran for the door. She threw the door open and light overthrew the room. There was a violent hiss behind her, and when she turned around It was gone.

The boys breathed heavy.

“We,” Cassie sputtered a little as her tongue tripped on the heart in her throat, “we should find Ms. Gordon, or any adult.”

Tim nodded and stood slowly, stumbling and tracing his hands over his throat, he offered Bart his hand after a few steps.

“That was It?” Bart asked.

“Yeah,” Conner said, rubbing his arms to kill the gooseflesh lingering there. “You still think this is gonna be fun?”

“Are you kidding me? That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Bart exclaimed.

Tim rolled his eyes. “We should tell Barbara what happened.”

Cassie led the charge into the hallway, being the one standing right there, and Tim would have taken over if Gordon hadn’t turned the corner right then. With a distraught Lois Lane in tow.

Conner took a shaky step back. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” Lane echoed, her voice shrill. “Conner, where have you been? Why didn’t you come home last night?”

_(Why did you break the rules, Conner?)_

“Do you have any idea how worried I was? I thought you had been kidnapped, or worse, Jon cried all night, Clark didn’t sleep at all, do you have any idea how stupid this little stunt of yours was?” Lane said.

“I’m sorry,” Conner whispered.

“What was that?”

“I’m sorry,” Conner said with a loud sob which he tried his best to choke back since his friends were watching.

“Oh, honey.” And she melted, kneeling down and wrapped her arms around her son. “It’s okay, I’m here now, we’re going home now.”

The rest of the kids and Gordon tried not to feel like they were intruding as Lane stood up holding her son’s hand just a little too tightly, but he said nothing.

“As for you kids, don’t you know it’s summer? Get home before I call your parents,” Lane threatened.

“We’re done for today, we’ll go right home,” Tim promised.

“We will?” Bart wondered.

Cassie drove her elbow between his ribs. Lane narrowed her eyes at them. She tugged on Conner’s hand and turned on her heel to leave.

“Bye, Conner,” Bart waved, “we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Absolutely not,” Lane laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of three scenes in this story where I found myself watching the film-counterpart of the scene multiple times, just because fight scenes are hard and all I really want to write it 70,000 words of dialogue but that would get really boring. The projector scene in the movie was one of my favourites and translating it was actually a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	13. Home Sweet Home

Jon Kent had been waiting by the window ever since he had been told about the phone call earlier that day, telling them that Conner was with Bart Allen at the library. Kent had tried to persuade him away to have a snack or take a nap, but Jon was determined to wait and make sure his brother really made it home. He had tried to convince his mother to let him come to get Conner, but Lane and Kent agreed that it was better if he stayed home. So, Jon contented himself by waiting at the window until he saw his mother’s car pull into the driveway overtop of his chalk drawings that felt so much older than just the day before. When the car came along, Jon sprang into action.

“Kon’s home,” he shouted to his father as he ran for the door, struggling for a minute to remember the door was locked before Kent reached over his head to unlock the it.

Jon didn’t have time to waste with a thank, you, he was running for the car like it was going to explode if he didn’t get there in time. His run broke into a sprint when he really saw his brother slink out of the car, dressed in the same dirty clothes he had been wearing yesterday, which were soaked through with something dark, but otherwise, he appeared to be completely fine.

“Conner!” Jon shrieked before he hurtled himself into his brother’s arms.

Conner stumbled a little but managed to support his brother’s attack. “Jon?” Conner said.

Jon clung tightly to Conner’s ruined clothes and he just hung on. There was nothing else to do than just hold his brother close and ease himself by knowing that he was there. He was real and in person. He was safe, and alive, and most importantly, he was home.

He wanted to ask where he had been, why he had disappeared, but when he opened his mouth, he just sobbed, loud and wet. Tears and snot joined the stains already sunken deep in Conner’s clothes in a matter of seconds.

“It’s okay,” Conner whispered, quietly enough so that even Jon himself couldn’t hear him over all the noisy crying. He returned the hug and tried as hard as he could not to cry himself, he had cried too much in the past couple of days for his tastes. “I’m okay, don’t be scared, I won’t let It hurt you.”

Jon still hadn’t let go, and he had no intention of letting go any time soon, by the time Kent finally made his way down the driveway to see his son.

“Conner,” Kent said.

“Dad,” Conner mumbled back.

“What time is curfew?” Kent asked.

_(Curfew is at seven.)_

“Dad, please,” Conner said.

“What time is curfew?” Kent repeated. 

_(Curfew is at seven.)_

“Seven,” Conner replied.

“And what time do you have to be home by?” Kent asked.

_(Be home by six.)_

“Six,” Conner replied.

“So, where were you last night?” Kent asked.

_(Why did you break the rules, Conner?)_

“I.” Conner swallowed heavily before he began reciting a story. “I was playing by Bart Allen’s house, I fell, and they said I got a concussion, Bart saw me fall and let me stay at his house for the night when I passed out.”

Lane and Kent both knew that was bullshit because Hal Jordan had told them he didn’t know what happened, if it was so simple as falling outside of the Allen house, he wouldn’t have lied about it.

“And why didn’t you come home this morning?” Kent asked.

“Clark, can we do this inside?” Lane softly pleaded.

There was no one watching or anything, people in Watchtower County tended to mind their own business on matters like this, but still, it was a discussion for a more private location than the driveway.

“Come on,” Kent agreed.

Conner had to awkwardly maneuver so that he was actually carrying his brother. Because when he tried to let go, Jon simply clung tighter. Lane placed a hand on Conner’s shoulder which made him freeze. She pushed him gently towards the house and he forced himself to relax to awkwardly drag Jon up the stairs into the house. Lane tossed her car keys on the table with a little more force than was completely necessary to express that she most certainly wasn’t happy either. The moment the door was closed Kent turned on his son again. 

“Well?”

“I thought you would be mad,” Conner said.

“Oh, you got that right,” Lane agreed, “what were you thinking? Not even having anyone call us?”

“I’m sorry,” Conner said.

“Sorry doesn’t change that you made a stupid decision, and you’re in huge trouble for it,” Kent said.

“I was unconscious for most of it, I didn’t mean to not call,” Conner confessed.

“You should have come home right away, why did you run off to hide in the library? You’ve never gone to the library,” Lane exclaimed.

“Bart wanted to go to the library,” Conner said.

“And you just volunteered to go with him?” Lane asked.

“I felt like I owed him after he let me crash for the night,” Conner explained.

Lane wondered when her son had become such a compulsive liar. “And what about those other kids you were fooling around with?”

“I dunno, we ran into them, Bart was friends with Tim and Cassie is the new kid next door,” Conner shrugged.

“So, you decided to just hang out with kids who I’ve never heard you mention before today as friends instead of coming home, letting us worry,” Lane said.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I did, and I’m sorry, I was concussed and not thinking straight, I’m sorry,” Conner repeated.

“Stop yelling,” Jon said into his brother’s shirt.

“Jon, maybe you should go to your room so that your mom and I can talk to Conner,” Kent suggested.

“No,” Jon said, “you’re just gonna yell at him.”

“It’s okay,” Conner said, “Jon, you can let go now.”

“But what if you go away again?” Jon asked.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Conner assured, “I’m just gonna go to my room.”

“Oh, no you aren’t, we aren’t done talking about this,” Kent said.

“What else is there to talk about? You’re mad, I’m grounded, skip the lecture, I’ll go to my room,” Conner suggested.

“No, obviously you don’t understand how big a problem this is, Conner, you can’t just be a rebellious kid and break all the rules because you feel like it, or you want to upset us, or whatever it was that convinced you to do this,” Kent exclaimed.

_(Why did you break the rules, Conner?)_

“That wasn’t it at all,” Conner cried.

“Then what was it?” Kent asked.

“Clark,” Lane whispered.

“No, I want to know exactly what he was thinking that made him think this was okay,” Kent said.

“I don’t know, okay?” Conner shouted, “I was scared, or I was hurt, I don’t know, and you don’t care, so let’s leave it at that, and I’ll be grounded.”

“Conner,” Lane cried.

Conner pried Jon’s vice-grip off of him, which didn’t take too much effort once he took Jon’s feelings out of the picture and just focused on getting his brother away from him. Far away from him, and whatever It was that wanted him. Jon sobbed harder and tried to grab on again, but Conner was already gone.

“Conner,” Lane cried.

Conner slammed the door to his room behind him.

Lane gave her husband the usual look, the one that asked him what he was thinking. She tried to knock on Conner’s door.

“Conner?” She asked.

“Go away,” Conner said.

“Conner, I know your father went a little far, but we do need to talk about this,” Lane said, giving Kent that look again.

“I said fuck off,” Conner shouted.

Jon began to wail, Kent lifted him up with ease and carried him off to his own room before he had to listen to anything else.

“Conner,” Lane shouted.

“Fuck off, leave me alone, I’m sorry,” Conner repeated.

Lane took a step back. She held onto the doorknob for a moment, knowing that her children’s rooms didn’t have locks. Then she left to check on Jon.

Conner stayed in his room until eight, when there was a phone call.

“Hello, this is the Kent residence, how can I help you,” Lane recited.

“Hi, um, this is Tim Drake, I was with Conner today?”

“Oh, of course, Bruce’s boy, how are you?” Lane asked.

“I’m well, I was just calling to make sure Conner got home okay.”

“Yes, he’s just fine, thank you for calling,” Lane said.

“Can I talk to him?”

“Um, Conner isn’t actually feeling very well,” Lane lied, “I don’t think he really wants to talk to anyone.”

“Can you ask him anyways?”

Lane didn’t want to, but she knew Tim Drake, he was a good kid. A good influence. She knocked on Conner’s door. “Conner?”

“What?” Conner said.

“Your friend Tim is on the phone,” Lane said.

The door opened immediately, Conner took the phone and closed the door.

“Conner!” Lane exclaimed.

“Tim?” Conner whispered into the phone.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, what happened after I left?” Conner asked.

“Not much, Bart and Cassie agreed we shouldn’t move forwards without you, assuming you’re still in, that is.”

_(Curfew is at seven.)_

_(Be home by six.)_

_(Why would you break the rules, Conner?)_

_(Why would you break the rules, Conner?)_

_(Why would you break the rules, Conner?)_

_(Look out for Jon.)_

That was why he broke the rules. Because that instruction was more important than his father’s stupid rules, and if breaking them was what it took to achieve it, that’s exactly what he would do.

“Yeah, I’m in.”

“Good, you know the cliff in the forest? The kids call it Mount Justice.”

“Yeah, I know it.” That would be another broken rule, playing in the forest.

“That’s where we’re meeting tomorrow, at ten, we’ll see you there?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kent family has lots of issues and somehow it gets even worse after this, they were the most interesting part of this story in my opinion, forget the killer sewer-clown. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	14. Unhappy Families

The kids found themselves staring over the high edge of Mount Justice into the still waters far below.

“Why did we agree to meet here, again?” Conner asked, taking a step away from the edge.

“Research purposes,” Tim replied.

“Yeah, care to elaborate on that a little?” Conner requested.

“If It really is killing,” and Tim choked a little when he said that word, “killing it’s victims, this is the last place Barbara and I have deduced they would wash up, and since Eddie Bloomberg went missing yesterday, today would be the day to check.”

“We’re looking for a dead body?” Bart asked.

“Eddie went missing?” Conner wondered. Eddie was a couple years younger than they were, he was a bit of an annoying kid, always tagging along after someone who didn’t want him there, but he was a good kid. A little bit stupid and oblivious, always with his head in the clouds, but still, a good kid. He meant well.

“Yesterday, shortly after we saw It was the last time anyone saw him,” Tim said.

“And you think It got him?” Cassie asked.

“The odds of two kids in a row getting away and just hiding from their parents is pretty low,” Conner admitted.

“Eddie lives with his aunt actually, but your point still stands,” Tim agreed.

“But it isn’t impossible,” Cassie insisted.

“Still, we owe it to him to check,” Tim said.

“You said that this was the last place, there are others?” Conner asked.

“Yeah, anywhere the sewer lets out is technically a possibility, but down there is actually the most likely exit, I checked all the other places when Greta went missing” Tim said.

“So why didn’t you check here too? If it’s the most likely place,” Conner asked.

“Barbara said it was too dangerous to climb down there by myself, and she was right, but we can’t use that excuse anymore,” Tim explained.

“We have to climb down there?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah,” Tim agreed.

“All the way down this huge, steep mountain?” She confirmed.

“Yes, Tim agreed.

“There isn’t any shortcut or anything?”

“No.”

“Sure, there is,” Bart interrupted, still staring down at the water below. “We could just jump right down there, then we would only need to worry about climbing back up.”

“Which would be way more effort than climbing down,” Conner pointed out.

“Still, better than walking all the way down, seeing the dead body, then climbing all the way back up to tell someone about it,” Bart said.

“Bart, no,” Tim decided, “that’s way too dangerous, there could be sharp rocks down there, you could kill yourself.”

Bart squinted down at the water. “I don’t see any rocks.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t that doesn’t make it any less dangerous,” Tim said.

“How about we put it to a vote?” Cassie suggested, “all in favour of cliff jumping?”

Other than Tim, the kids all rose their hands.

“Looks like we’re jumping,” Cassie said.

“You’re going to die,” Tim warned.

“We will not,” Conner said, then he slapped Bart on the back so hard he nearly fell over the edge.

“Hey, you could have killed me,” Bart protested after regaining his balance.

“Oh, whatever,” Conner said, “you’re going to jump anyways.”

“Not first I’m not,” Bart said.

“Yeah you are, this was your idea,” Conner said.

“Yeah, but I’m tiny, so if anything was to go wrong, I would be the most likely to die, I’ll go second,” Bart decided.

“What, do you expect me to go first?” Conner asked.

“Yeah,” Bart agreed.

“I’m not going first,” Conner said.

“I’ll go first.”

The boys turned around to gape and stare as Cassie pulled her shorts down, her shirt already lying off to the side. She was only twelve, so it wasn’t like she was a fully developed woman, but still, neither Conner nor Bart had ever seen a woman so close to naked.

“Babies,” Cassie accused, before she ran right between the two of them, wearing only her blue panties and yellow bra to jump off the cliff.

“Cassie!” Tim shouted after she was already in the air, he ran to the cliff just in time to see the splash when she hit the water.

“Did we just get shown up by a girl?” Bart wondered.

If the boys looked closely, they could see Cassie waving at them down below. She was a little too far away for them to hear her shouting for them to join her, but they didn’t need any more motivation than seeing she made it down safely to quickly strip and jump after her. Excepting Tim, of course, who paced the summit twice before deciding he couldn’t just stay up there all by himself and jumped after them.

“Look at us, all not dead,” Conner pointed out when Tim finally resurfaced.

“Fuck you,” Tim said, splashing Conner slightly.

Conner grinned, and with no other warning, tackled Tim to dunk his head underwater while Tim screamed in surprise.

“What the fuck?” Tim shouted when once again he came to surface. Conner just splashed him again. Tim kicked him underwater. While Conner gasped, Bart jumped on his back. Cassie held her breath and yanked on Tim’s ankle to make him scream again. A four-way water war broke out between the kids without another word spoken between them, all screaming and laughing at each other, like kids were supposed to during summer.

They played for at least a couple of hours before exhausting themselves and dragging each other to shore. Bart in particular insisted that he was immobilized, and someone had to carry him. Someone turned out to be Conner.

“Well,” Cassie said once they were on the shore, waiting in the sun until they were ready to begin the monstrous climb back up Mount Justice to retrieve their clothes. “I don’t know about you guys, but I didn’t see any dead bodies down here.”

“There wasn’t supposed be a dead body,” Tim said.

“Then why did we come down here at all?” Conner asked.

“Because it was fun?” Bart suggested.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t fun, I just want to know why we did it at all?” Conner wondered.

“It was just to be sure,” Tim said.

“But if you were so sure that he wouldn’t be here, then why even bother?” Conner asked.

“Because I needed to be sure, I needed to know one-hundred-percent that It didn’t kill anyone,” Tim said.

“Why are you so convinced that It isn’t killing anyone, huh? What if It ate their bodies, bones and all so we’ll never find them,” Conner wondered.

“Because they just can’t be dead, okay?” Tim said, “and it’s none of your business anyways.”

“Uh, yes, it is my business, it’s all of our business, we’re supposed to be in this together, aren’t we? How are we supposed to work together and fight this thing if you’re going to be keeping secrets? You’re asking us to climb all the way back up your death mountain, you can at least tell us why we aren’t going to find anything down there,” Conner asked.

The group fell silent for a moment.

“You could at least tell us when you first saw It,” Cassie quietly suggested.

Conner and Cassie had both shared their stories, but Tim had never shared a word as to his own involvement.

Tim stared at his wet feet for a long moment before he gave in.

“I have three brothers and a sister,” Tim began, “two of my brothers are older, one is younger, and my sister is older than me, it goes Dick, Jason, Cass, me, Damian. Every year, my family used to go on picnics the last weekend of summer before school started. The last one was four years ago. Barbara told you guys, It comes around here every three years. Three summers ago, was the summer with all of the flooding, and no one was allowed to go out because it was raining too hard. It rained until about mid-July, when it started easing up a little. It was still raining, but Jason, my brother, he was getting antsy, he hated being stuck inside for a long time, so dad and Selina let him go out. And It took him, I haven’t seen him since. And it’s stupid, because I told him that it wasn’t safe, but he left anyways, and now he’s gone. Everyone else says he’s dead, even Cass, well, she doesn’t say it, because she knows I’ll get upset, but I know she thinks it. Cass is usually the one who understands, but she thinks I’m wrong, I just know it, but I can’t be wrong about this. And Dick thinks I’m crazy, but he won’t say that either, and Damian’s always hated me, he will say that, as many times as he likes, and dad has practically shut down ever since Jason went missing, only tuning in to worry about everything, Selina’s doing her best to keep him together, but how long can that really last before she gets sick of it and she just disappears one day too? So, Jason can’t be dead, because without Jason, everything falls apart. Jason can’t be dead, so none of them can be dead, and Jason can’t be dead because he’s my brother.”

“The family in the picture yesterday?” Cassie wondered.

“Mine,” Tim agreed.

“But you weren’t in that picture,” Bart observed.

“I took the picture, I used to be really into photography until Jason went missing,” Tim said.

“It was a nice picture,” Cassie said, she wouldn’t have guessed that an eight-year-old child had taken it if Tim hadn’t told her. “Why did you stop?”

“I dunno,” Tim shrugged, “I just don’t have time anymore I guess, I met Barbara not long after, and she’s been helping me look for him ever since.”

“And you still think he’s alive? After three years?” Bart asked.

“You don’t get it, he’s my brother, he can’t just be gone forever, I have to have some chance in hell of seeing him again,” Tim accused.

“I get it,” Conner said. “If Jon went missing one day, I think I’d just about lose my mind.”

“Are you calling me crazy?” Tim asked.

“What? No, not at all, I’m just saying, since I have a brother too, I get how important yours must have been to you,” Conner said.

Tim was silent for a moment. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“What about you, Conner?” Bart asked.

“What do you mean?” Conner asked.

“Tim just gave us his deep, dark, family secret, what’s yours?” Bart asked.

“Yeah, how come you didn’t go home yesterday?” Cassie wondered.

“Hey, how about you share your story?” Conner suggested, “what did you do wrong that your mom would drop you off in Murders-Ville for the summer?”

“I actually didn’t do anything, my mom and my dad have been separated for the past eleven years and are only just sorting out a divorce, so mom sent me to live with Diana for the summer while she sorts that out,” Cassie said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Conner said. He really was just prying at all the wrong topics.

“Don’t be, my mom’s done a great job being single, and I’ve never really felt like I missed out on having a father, I know I should probably feel something, now that my parents are finalizing it and everything, but my dad hasn’t given a shit about me for the past eleven years, why should I give a shit about him?” Cassie asked. “But Tim, I get it too, what you said about Selina just getting sick of it all and walking away one day? I get it, but it isn’t the end of the world if she leaves.”

“I think it’s a bit different when you’re actually old enough to remember it,” Tim pointed out.

“Yeah, but still, eleven years later it won’t even matter,” Cassie said.

“Thanks,” Tim said.

“Okay, I went, Tim went, Conner, it’s your turn,” Cassie urged.

And he couldn’t bow out anymore, it just wouldn’t be fair, not after both Tim and Cassie had gone.

“Lois isn’t my real mom,” Conner confessed, “they don’t think I know, but I do.”

“So, what?” Tim asked, “Four out of the five of us at my place are adopted, and Selina’s our step-mom.”

“I know, lots of kids have step-parents, but it’s different with Lois,” Conner said, it was a bit of a relief to not have to call her mom like he had equal claim to her that Jon did. “I never really cared, or maybe I just didn’t notice until Jon was born five years ago, and they’ve always treated me different than they treat him, which I get, Jon is great, he’s my brother, I love him, he’s the perfect kid, and I don’t know, I’m just not, and they both know it, I’m a problem kid. It’s like, I was born, then I existed, and that was fine for a while, but then they got the kid they actually wanted and I’m still here, they don’t want me to be here anymore, but I am. They don’t think I know about this either, to be honest, I don’t think they think I know much of anything, but they wanted to send me off to live with my grandparents, just because they couldn’t deal with me anymore. They only decided against it because Jon would be upset if I just disappeared one day. Lois tries to care, and I appreciate that, I really do, but she doesn’t actually care, not like she cares about Jon, dad doesn’t even bother pretending, all he really wants me around for is to look out for Jon, and I told you, I love Jon, but whenever he’s there, it’s so obvious that they actually love him, and they’re only pretending to care about me, so why would I want to go home to get yelled at for nearly getting murdered by some bloodthirsty clown monster, that was about the opposite of what I needed. I just couldn’t deal with their bullshit, so I didn’t go back.”

If Bart was focusing more on what he remembered, he would have called Conner out that being avoiding his parents for something more important than just wanting to avoid their judgement. He was scared. Scared that they would think it was his fault, scared that they would be mad, scared that they wouldn’t care, scared of them in general. As it stood, Bart was completely immersed in Conner’s story, and he didn’t think of how Conner had reacted at his house only a couple of days before.

“Wow,” Tim said.

“They can’t really feel that way,” Cassie insisted.

“They really do,” Conner said, “if you just saw how they treat me compared to how they treat Jon, you would get it, how they love Jon is real, whatever it is they feel towards me, it’s fake, or real negative.”

“No offence, but I would punch your parents given the chance,” Tim said.

Conner laughed, “yeah, good luck with that, Clark would kick your ass, you’re more of a noodle than Bart.”

“I don’t care, I would punch him,” Tim insisted, “it isn’t okay that they make you feel like that.”

“Thanks,” Conner said.

“If Tim couldn’t punch them, I could,” Bart suggested.

Conner laughed again, “I don’t think you would do much better.”

“Oh, I could, I’m surprisingly scrappy,” Conner laughed at that too.

And again, the kids fell silent. Sitting on the shore by the lake at the bottom of a cliff all wearing nothing more than their underwear, something happened. A wordless connection. They were officially all in this together. For better or for worse, they were a team.

“I guess you’re the only one left, Bart,” Cassie said.

“Me?” Bart asked.

“Yeah, all of us shared how our families are fucked up, it’s your turn,” Cassie explained.

“There’s really nothing to tell,” Bart shrugged, “my family’s great, I love them, they love me, it’s pretty normal.”

“What about what’s up with your grandpa,” Conner suggested.

“Grampa Hal?” Bart wondered, deducing that was the grandpa Conner was talking about since that was the grandpa he had met.

“Yeah, he’s way too young to be your actual grandpa,” Conner observed, he was greying a little at the temples, but that was premature, and he most certainly wasn’t old enough to have grandchildren.

“Well, if by actual you mean biological, you’re right he isn’t,” Bart agreed.

“I knew it,” Conner proudly keened.

“Grampa Barry’s my biological Grampa, Grampa Hal’s been his best friend since forever, but they only really reconnected when Grampa graduated college, my Grampa works for the police, you see? And Grampa Hal was a cop for a couple of months before he got fired for punching his stupid boss in his stupid face, and then he sorta never went away after that, he moved in with Grampa Barry and Gramma Iris, and they got married a year after that, and then they took Wally in a couple years after that, Wally’s their nephew on Gramma Iris’ side, so he’s my cousin once removed, but his parents sucked, so Gramma and Grampa took him and then a couple years after that there was me, and by the time I came along, Grampa Hal was just part of the family, and Wally called him uncle, and he called Grampa Barry uncle, so it made sense that Grampa Hal was Grampa too.”

The other kids could only stare as Bart painted them a bizarre tapestry of his family’s history.

“What about your parents?” Tim asked.

“What do you mean?” Bart wondered.

“Where do they fit in to all of that?” Tim asked.

“Oh, I dunno,” Bart confessed.

They all just stared.

“Bart, what the fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tips on how to make the Flash Family Tree make sense in a modern/no powers context: You can't. It's impossible. And look at all my kids talking about their issues as if they're healthy children, I'm so proud. Obviously, things have gotten a bit out of order compared to the movie, since the barrens scene would be before the projector scene, but this is only heavily inspired, not a carbon copy. If you enjoyed this chapter please feel free to leave a comment, I hope you enjoyed.


	15. Brotherly Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sister did more fan art for the AU, from chapters 9 and 10:
> 
> https://allyallyorange.tumblr.com/post/179057768394/im-doodlin-this-cus-i-was-gonna-but-keep
> 
> and chapter 7:
> 
> https://allyallyorange.tumblr.com/post/179059844764/i-actually-like-the-way-this-one-looks-poor-kon
> 
> She's awesome, you should definitely check out all of her art.

“I’m home,” Tim called as he slammed the door.

“Welcome back,” Dick shouted from the living room.

“Dick?” Tim asked, kicking his shoes off before chasing his brother’s voice into the living room. 

“Hey,” Dick greeted. He was sitting on the couch with his book half closed, it was Robin Hood, his favourite, although he had only actually read it one or two times because he got bored of it fairly quickly. Damian was sitting next to him with a book of his own.

“Hey,” Tim echoed, “what are you doing here, again?”

“Laundry room at my place is still busted,” Dick replied.

“How many times a week do you need to do laundry?” Tim asked.

“How many times a week does Alfred do your laundry?” Dick asked.

Every day, but that wasn’t the point.

“That isn’t the point, I feel like you’ve been here every day this week, don’t you have work to do?” Tim asked.

“I don’t work 24/7, you know, just because I have a job doesn’t mean I never get time off or come home,” Dick said.

“It’s only five, you should still be working,” Tim said.

“I requested to go home early to spend some time with my favourite little siblings, it’s summer now, I feel like I barely saw you guys all year,” Dick said.

“Shouldn’t the police force be busy with the Bloomberg case?” Tim asked.

Dick frowned. “Where did you hear about that?”

“Barbara doesn’t keep secrets from me,” Tim replied. And even if she did, it wasn’t exactly hard to hear big news like another kid disappearing in a small county like theirs. Tim could read newspapers, or even just eavesdrop a for a minute or two, it wasn’t so hard for children learn things they weren’t supposed to know as the adults believed it to be.

“I’m not sure I like this Barbara you’re spending so much time with,” Dick said.

“Barbara’s fine, she actually listens to me,” Tim said.

“Hey, am I not trying to have a conversation with you right now?” Dick wondered.

“Talking to me and listening to me are two completely different things,” Tim said.

“Then talk to me, I’m a good listener,” Dick said.

“I just told you, you’re here way too often, it’s getting a bit suspicious, there’s no way you need your clothes cleaned every day,” Tim observed.

“He’s right, for maybe the first time in his life,” Damian said, without looking up, “if you’re planning on coming over so often as you have been, you may as well move back in.”

“Aw, have you missed me?” Dick asked, leaning on his brother teasingly.

“Of course not, but with you around, it’s easier to avoid him,” Damian said, shooting his other older brother a glare.

“Yeah, I hate you too, brat,” Tim said, “where’s Cass?”

“She’s out with Steph, she’ll be back in half-an-hour or so, which means for once, you aren’t the last kid home, congrats,” Dick said.

“Oh, in that case, I’m going to my room,” Tim decided.

“Hey, or, you could stay down here and hang out with your brothers, what’s the rush?” Dick suggested.

“Or he could not,” Damian said.

“Yeah, I think I’ll just go upstairs, thanks,” Tim agreed.

“Sit down,” Dick ordered, and Tim slunk down into one of the armchairs far away from the couch. “You want me to listen, here I am, listening, tell me what’s up, how was Barbara and the library today?”

“I wasn’t at the library today,” Tim said.

Tim was always at the library, and only ever to the library, Dick suspected that he went other places during the day, actually, he was sure of it since he saw him biking around all day, but he always lied and said he spent the whole day inside with Barbara and the books. “Then where were you?”

“I hiked up to Mount Justice in the forest,” Tim replied.

“All by yourself?” Dick asked.

“No, I was with a couple of other kids,” Tim said.

“Friends?” Dick asked, suddenly sitting upright, Damian made a slight whining noise at the sudden movement.

“I guess, sorta,” Tim agreed.

“Who are they?” Dick asked.

“Who would ever want to be friends with you?” Damian wondered.

“I was with the new girl living with Ms. Prince, Cassie, Bart Allen, and Conner Kent, who is totally okay, by the way, not dead, he’s sorry he vomited in your laundry” Tim answered, giving Damian a look, daring him to say that he was.

“You made friends, I’m so proud of you,” Dick cooed.

“Thanks,” Tim said, “can I go now?”

“No, tell me everything, what did you do up there? Where did these new friends come from all of a sudden?” Dick wondered.

“I don’t know if we’re really friends,” Tim confessed, “I think we’re more like a team, allies.”

Dick didn’t like the sound of that so much. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

“You wouldn’t get it,” Tim said.

“Come on, tell me, I told you, I’m here to listen right now,” Dick said.

“He’s going to start talking crazy again,” Damian said.

“It isn’t crazy,” Tim insisted.

“It is, these friends of yours have something to do with your stupid theory about Jason, don’t they? Well, we don’t want to hear it,” Damian spat.

“It isn’t stupid,” Tim said.

“It is stupid, stupid and delusional,” Damian accused.

“It is not,” Tim growled, “just you wait, by the end of summer he’ll be back, just you wait.”

“Tim?” Dick said, “is that really what this is all about?”

“Dick, you don’t understand, I’m not crazy, they saw It too, they’re going to help me find him,” Tim said.

“Right, so you’re telling me, all of your friends saw the ghost of our dead brother?” Dick wondered.

“No, Dick, I told you about this, It’s a shapeshifter, it takes the form of whatever we’re afraid of, I saw it take the form of Jason, but It’s true form, as far as we know is a clown,” Tim said.

“Stop,” Dick interrupted, “Damian’s right, I don’t want to hear it, Tim, what brought all this on again? You’ve been doing so well the past few years.”

“He’s always been insane, he’s just been keeping quiet all this time, but now that people are dying again, he’s acting out again, because he’s crazy, and he can’t accept that our brother is dead,” Damian accused.

“Jason is not dead, and I am not crazy,” Tim shouted.

“It’s been three years, even if Jason wasn’t dead then, he would be long dead by now, get over it and move on, you’re going to get yourself killed on this stupid escapade of yours,” Damian said.

“I am not, I know what I’m doing, I’m not by myself, I can do it this time,” Tim said.

“Just like you could do it three years ago?” Damian wondered.

“I wasn’t prepared three years ago, this time I will be,” Tim said.

“Tim,” Dick said before Damian could insult again, “tell me you aren’t going to do anything dangerous again?”

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Tim said.

“Do you think you should start talking to a therapist again?” Dick suggested.

“What, so I can have someone else to call me crazy and not listen to me? No thanks,” Tim decided.

“I am listening,” Dick said.

“No, you aren’t, you’re just telling me that I’m crazy again, I’m not crazy, I never was, this thing is out there, and it’s real, and it has Jason,” Tim accused.

“I’m not saying that you’re crazy, but you are unwell, and you need to talk to someone about it,” Dick said.

“I talk about it plenty, to Barbara and now to my team, because they actually listen to me,” Tim spat.

“I just want to help you before it gets too bad again,” Dick said.

“Is that what this is all about?” Tim asked, “you’re spending so much time at home because it’s summer and you’re scared I’m going to get bad again?”

“Is it such a problem if I am?” Dick wondered.

“I am not crazy,” Tim shouted.

“I know, you aren’t, but these things you’re talking about, they sound crazy.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I know it sounds crazy, but you’re my brother, you’re supposed to believe in me.”

“I can’t afford to do that,” Dick said, “I could never forgive myself if I just let you get bad again and kill yourself.”

“That isn’t what happened,” Tim said.

“You don’t get it, you could have died, I’m not going to just stand by and watch that happen again.”

“For the last time, I never tried to kill myself.”

“What? So, I’m just supposed to believe your deluded story that it was Jason?”

“That isn’t what happened either, you never listen to me.”

“If he wants to kill himself, I say we let him this time,” Damian proposed.

Dick stared at his brother with horrified eyes. “Damian!”

“I’m sick of listening to him talk crazy about Jason like he’s the only one who cared about him, if he really wants to die too so badly, he should just get it over with, we’ll have the funeral before it starts to rain,” Damian suggested.

“I never said I’m the only one who cares about Jason, and even if I did, you never liked Jason, you always fought with him, you hated him,” Tim said.

These were of course all fuzzy memories to Damian, back when he was only five.

“Maybe I did,” Damian agreed, “but I would rather have him here than you.”

Tim finally stood up. “Yeah? Well join the fucking club,” he said. He turned on his heel and ran all the way upstairs to his room with Dick shouting after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of the things that were discussed this chapter get explained next chapter, so don't worry if you got a little lost. Also, if anyone's wondering why I chose to kill off Greta and Eddie, it's because they were the first two dead heroes from that generation that I could think of. Thanks for reading the chapter, I hope you enjoyed it.


	16. Tim Three Years Earlier

It was still raining.

Nowhere near as hard as it had been the day Jason disappeared, it was more like spitting really. Still, it was rain.

There was a part of Tim that thought Jason would come back when the rain was gone. The rain was so bad Jason had to go inside somewhere without power, so he couldn’t call, but he would come home as soon as the rain stopped. That was it. He was sure that had to be it. Who cared that Wayne had managed to get through to every single person in Watchtower County in the two weeks since Jason had gone missing? He missed somewhere. It wasn’t just a town, it was an entire county, that was a lot of people to call, he must have forgotten someone. Jason was just waiting for the rain to stop. Then he would come back. That had to be it.

“Timmy?”

“Hm?” Tim didn’t look away from the grey sky out the soggy window when he heard his brother calling him.

“It’s getting pretty late, do you want to come upstairs, yet?” Dick asked.

“No,” Tim said, “I’m gonna wait up a little bit longer.”

“Are you sure?” Dick wondered.

“Yeah, I’ll be up soon,” Tim said.

He was lying, of course, he had been waiting by the window for the past two weeks. As if their brother was sure to come skipping back along the road, muddy but grinning so long as he kept looking for him. He had screamed when Alfred tried to drag him away to dinner. So, they started having to bring him food, which he would pick at a little over the course of several hours and then say he wasn’t hungry.

“Okay,” Dick said anyways. He left the light on and went upstairs.

Tim still stayed staring out the window.

His eyelids started drooping not long after Dick’s exit. He was all but gone from consciousness before a light turned on in his peripheral vision. The house was otherwise dark, otherwise silent, all but for the living room, where Tim watched the street, and now, the kitchen. Tim stared at the kitchen, wondering if it was a figment of his imagination and the light had been on all along. Then he saw a shadow run across the floor. Tim stood up. There was no one to see him leave his post, so it didn’t even really count as leaving, he reasoned before he went for the kitchen. 

“Hello?” Tim called when he entered the kitchen.

There was no one there. No reply but the gentle tinkering of a music box, so quiet Tim didn’t even notice it unless he listened closely. Tim crossed the room in search of the sound, looking all around him. The lights were a power surge, he told himself, and the shadow was just a figment of an exhausted imagination. Maybe he should listen to Dick, go upstairs, get a proper night’s sleep. He knew that even if he did go upstairs, he wouldn’t be able to sleep, not while Jason was still missing, he didn’t understand how his siblings could. The music was coming from a cupboard.

Tim was reaching for the sound when a hand placed itself on his shoulder.

“Boo,” someone whispered in his ear.

Tim screamed. He tried to punch the person, but his wrist was caught without effort. Tim reached behind him to grab the closest thing he could grab with his free hand. He got lucky, or maybe unlucky when he held a knife in front of him. The person holding his wrist just laughed at the show of self-defence.

Tim would never forget that laugh.

“Jason?”

The boy, still with Tim’s wrist in his hand used his other hand to pull down the grey hood of his rain jacket so that Tim could see his face.

“Who else?” Jason asked.

“Oh my god, I knew you were okay,” Tim cried, and he wrapped himself around his brother as best he could without dropping the knife and with Jason still holding his wrist.

“What do you mean?” Jason asked.

“Jason, you’ve been gone for two weeks, everyone’s been worried sick about you,” Tim exclaimed, pulling himself away once more to make sure that it really was his brother. Home safe and sound.

“What? There’s no way it’s been two weeks,” Jason said.

“We need to tell mom and dad,” Tim said, he moved to pull Jason to the door, and then up the stairs, but Jason squeezed his wrist tighter.

“No, we can’t tell them,” Jason insisted.

“What do you mean?” Tim asked.

“Tim, I want to show you something, something really cool,” Jason said, changing the subject none too subtly.

“What is it?” Tim asked.

“I can’t tell you, you just have to trust me,” Jason said.

“Of course, I trust you,” Tim agreed, “but what do you want to show me? Jason, where have you been?”

A grin split Jason’s face. A grin that didn’t belong on a human being’s face. He tightened his hold on Tim’s wrist. “Floating,” Jason replied with that awful grin, “and if you come with me, you’ll float too,”

“Jason,” Tim winced, “you’re hurting me.”

“You’ll float too,” Jason repeated his voice was giddy and distorted, and it was horribly unfitting of the brother Tim remembered.

“Jason, let go,” Tim pleaded.

“You’ll float too,” Jason kept going like a broken record.

“Jason!” Tim cried. It felt like his bones were going to snap in Jason’s inhuman grip. But that couldn’t be right. He and Jason fought plenty, but Jason would never seriously hurt him. At least not on purpose.

Another hand wrapped around Tim’s. The hand that was still holding the knife. It was bony, and long, and narrow, all wrapped in a white glove.

“Together, shall we?” The owner of the hand whispered in Tim’s ear.

And before Tim could realize what has happening, the hand was driving Tim and his knife forwards. The knife went straight through Jason’s throat. Jason stumbled with shock and let go of Tim’s wrist. He left a bright red imprint there. Tim felt his shirt, where Jason had grabbed him to scare him fall damp and sticky against his shoulder. Jason coughed and red came pouring out. He raised a hand to the knife still in his throat, and like tears, blood came pouring from his eyes too.

“You’ll… float… too…” Jason choked out.

“Jason!” Tim cried.

A narrow, gloved hand lay itself on his shoulder to stop him from running to his brother’s aid. Tim looked up, It stared down with big yellow eyes and a grin even wider than Jason’s permanently stamped on his face. Tim froze under those eyes.

It walked past Tim, leaving him frozen. It took Jason by the neck in one hand, and in the other, It took the knife. Then it separated the two.

A flood of blood came pouring out of Jason’s throat. Staining Jason’s clothes, and It, and Tim. And the blood just kept flowing, while Jason choked like on a final prayer.

“You’ll… float… too…”

It turned back to Tim, with those awful yellow eyes.

“Are you ready to float, Timmy?” It asked.

Without waiting for an answer, with Jason still firmly held by the throat, the knife moved again. The knife hurt, Tim learned, when It went through his chest. But it hurt even worse when it came back out. And then it went in again, this time in his stomach. The music was playing, and It was laughing, and Tim was screaming louder each time the knife came out, and Jason kept saying it.

“You’ll… float… too…” Even as the blood kept pouring out.

Then It dropped the knife, and Tim collapsed right after it.

“Bye bye Timmy,” It said, and It waved with the hand that didn’t still hold Jason. “You’ll float real soon.”

“Jason!” Tim wheezed as It walked away into the shadows, still dragging his mumbling brother after it. Then they were both gone, and Dick was standing in the doorway. Horrified as Tim had been.

“Timmy!” Dick shouted.

“Dick,” Tim whispered. The image of his brother suddenly crouching in front of him was blurry.

“Dad!” Dick screamed behind him as loud as he could. “Dad! Mom!” 

“Dick, It has Jason,” Tim whispered, choking on his words like Jason had.

“Shh,” Dick said, “Timmy, you’re going to be okay.

All of Tim’s energy went into sobbing after that. Jason was gone again. Jason could be dead. And it would all be his fault. His fault for grabbing the knife. His fault for not fighting It. His fault for letting them leave.

Wayne and Ms. Kyle were there now, Tim wasn’t quite sure when that happened.

“What happened?” He barely heard his father say.

“I don’t know,” Dick screamed back, “I heard him screaming so I came down and I don’t know what happened!”

“Dick, shh, I need you to calm down,” Wayne requested, “Selina, call an ambulance, Dick, go with her.”

“Right,” Ms. Kyle agreed. Tim couldn’t see her properly, but he could tell that she was pale.

“He’s only nine, I didn’t think he would try to kill himself!” Dick was sobbing as he followed Selina out of the room.

“Tim?” Wayne said when they were gone. “Tim, I need you to stay with me, okay son? You’re going to be okay.”

Tim wanted to nod, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything more than cry for the time being.

“Please, Tim, I can’t lose you too,” Wayne whispered.

Tim didn’t think he had ever seen his father cry in front of him before or since that night. Holding him close as if that would keep all the blood inside him (Tim wasn’t sure when he had started holding him either).

Tim wanted to tell his father what he had seen. All about the thing that had Jason. But it hurt every time he opened his mouth, so he just bled.

There was a knock, on Tim’s door three years later.

“Timmy?” Dick called.

Tim was breathing hard. It had been years since the last time he thought about that. The first time he saw It and the last time he saw Jason. It was all Dick’s fault, Dick and Damian’s really, for bringing up the last time he had gotten “bad”.

“I’m still alive,” Tim called back.

“I know, Tim, I’m sorry, things got sort of out of hands down there,” Dick said.

Tim was silent.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Dick was sitting on the corner of his bed before Tim could even register it.

“Are you okay?” Dick asked.

“Fine,” Tim replied.

“Are you sure?” Dick asked.

“Fine,” Tim replied.

They were silent for a moment. “Cass called, she’s spending the night at Steph’s,” Dick said.

“Fine,” Tim agreed. Even though it was not fine, Cass was probably the only sibling he wanted to talk to just then. She didn’t understand, but she listened, and she knew that whatever it was, she couldn’t help beyond that.

“Well, I say she called, but I think she and Bruce just grunted at each other through the phone for a few minutes, you know how they do that?”

“We all do that.”

“Right.” Dick nodded awkwardly. “Anyways, that means you can’t go out with your friends tomorrow.”

“What? Why not?” Tim asked.

“It’s Sunday,” Dick replied, “Alfred’s day off, Selina, dad, and I have work to do, Cass is at Steph’s, that means you need to take care of Damian.”

“Damian’s eight, he can take care of himself,” Tim decided.

“He cannot, and you know it,” Dick said.

“Why? I could stay home by myself when I was his age, so could Cass, so could you,” Tim said.

“Things are different now,” Dick said.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“I’m going out tomorrow, call a babysitter if you really need someone to take care of the brat,” Tim suggested, even though it wasn’t an option since Damian had scared off just about every babysitter in Watchtower County, and finding one that he hadn’t so short notice would be near-impossible.

“Tim, you’re being difficult.”

“I said no, Dick, I’m not going to sit around all day and listen to Damian call me crazy when I should be trying to help Jason,” Tim cried.

“Jason is dead, Tim!” Dick exclaimed, “he’s dead, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Dick stood up and made for the door. “Grow up, and start trying to help the brother that’s still alive.”

Tim didn’t have any words to say to that, so he just screamed unintelligibly at the figure of his brother in his doorway again.

“I’m telling dad to book you a therapist again,” Dick said. Then he closed the door.

Tim screamed louder.

He wasn’t crazy.

He never tried to kill himself.

Jason was still alive.

Everything would be better when he got Jason back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another happy, healthy family, how wonderful. Writing actual horror bits are still the most annoying parts of the story, but I think they slowly get a little better as the story went on maybe? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	17. Ms. Prince's Private Collection

They were supposed to meet in the library at ten. Until then, Cassie stayed in Ms. Prince’s house, idly standing by the bookshelves running the bandaid covering her thumb over the spines of the rows of textbooks filling the shelves.

“Cassandra?” Ms. Prince asked when she saw the girl just standing there.

“Huh?” Cassie startled to attention.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” Ms. Prince asked.

“Not really,” Cassie said.

“Are you certain?” Ms. Prince offered one last time.

Cassie bit her cheek, wondering if she should ask Ms. Prince. “Do you have any books on Watchtower County?”

“Why would you ever want to read about Watchtower County? I thought you said it was boring here,” Ms. Prince wondered.

“I don’t know, it’s kinda interesting after all,” Cassie shrugged.

“How so?” Ms. Prince asked.

“It’s just weird,” Cassie said, glancing up to make sure Ms. Prince wasn’t behaving strangely again. “Have you ever noticed anything odd in this town, Diana? Anything weird, abnormal, supernatural, almost?”

Ms. Prince wasn’t quite looking at her. Her eyes were locked on her, sure, but she wasn’t really seeing her. “You can never forget a place like Watchtower County,” Ms. Prince said, “it was twenty-four years ago that I first left, I was only young when my mother and I moved away, and I’ve lived so many different places since then, Greece, France, but for some reason, I could never forget Watchtower County. I stayed away for maybe fifteen years before it dragged me back. Bad things happen around here. Because there’s something evil in Watchtower County, and I don’t know if it’s something in the soil, in the air, or in the water, but it’s there, and it’s always been there, so much a part of our lives that we don’t even notice it anymore unless we’re looking for it. But even when we don’t see it, it’s always there, waiting, and if you’re ever unfortunate enough to get away after seeing it, you can never really unsee it, no matter how far you go trying to leave it behind. And the worst part of it is, that I cannot do anything about it, no one can. But I can do far more good for this place here than I do hiding from it.”

“But what did you see?” Cassie asked.

“It was twenty-seven years ago, and I think,” Ms. Prince paused, “sometimes, I can convince myself that it was only a dream, others, I tell myself that it was less than that, that I spun a trauma out of stories I heard told around here.”

“But what was it?” Cassie asked.

“Nothing, it was nothing at all,” Ms. Prince insisted.

“Did you see a clown?”

For the first time, Ms. Prince’s eyes focused on Cassie. “A clown?”

“I just had a hunch,” Cassie confessed. “But, did you? See the clown?

“Maybe I did, it was only dream, and it was so long ago I can hardly remember it,” Diana said.

“But what if it wasn’t?” Cassie asked.

Ms. Prince considered what to say next. “Did you know I have a sister?” Ms. Prince wondered.

“No, I didn’t,” Cassie said, uncertain of exactly what she was trying to get to.

“She goes to school in San Francisco, but she moved here with me when I came here six years ago, and she stayed until she graduated,” Ms. Prince said.

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Sometimes, I look back and I realize I can’t recall any of my childhood, like it never occurred, I simply awoke as an adult, and never found anything strange about it. But I remember my sister’s childhood six years ago, when we arrived, she made friends with a girl named Rachel Roth, but her friends called her Raven, I never did know why, but I remember it was Raven who liked to tell the stories,” Ms. Prince recalled. “They were these terrible, vivid stories about things she thought she had seen, things straight out of nightmares, It was Raven who said that there was something evil in Watchtower County, I don’t quite understand why she thought so, not fully at least, but I know exactly what she means, I cannot put it quite into words, but I understand, and she was very determined about it, she told all the other kids the same thing. I’ve never been able to forget about that. She said there was something out to get her, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. She was so sure that this place was so evil.”

“You don’t think she was telling the truth?” Cassie said.

“Of course,” Ms. Prince laughed lightly at the notion that she wouldn’t.

“Where is Rachel now?” Cassie asked.

“Gone, she went missing that same summer,” Ms. Prince said. “And I’ve never been able to get the thought out of my head that whatever she said was out to get her really did catch her, in the end.”

“Did she ever tell you what she saw?” Cassie asked.

Ms. Prince was staring, Cassie thought she preferred it when she refused to actually see her. “Perhaps, Cassandra, the better question is what have you seen?”

Cassie considered telling her everything right then and there. “You wouldn’t understand,” Cassie said, because she knew she wouldn’t. “I can’t tell you yet, there’s too much I don’t understand myself yet.”

“Whatever you’re planning on doing,” I don’t think I want you to do it,” Ms. Prince decided.

Cassie blinked for a moment, as if that would change the scene in front of her. “But Diana, I have to,” she claimed.

“I told your mother I would keep you safe this summer, and I intend to do so, no matter what it may take.” Ms. Prince reminded.

“I’m not alone, I have friends to look out for me,” Cassie said.

“I just don’t want to see you hurt,” Ms. Prince said, “when kids talk about seeing strange things, clowns and apparitions, they have a bad tendency to go missing not long after, you are mine to protect, this summer, I don’t want to see you disappear.”

“I won’t disappear, none of us are, we’re going to save this place,” Cassie said, “that’s all I can really tell you right now.”

“This place is not yours to save, you’re just kids, it’s summer, you should be having fun,” Ms. Prince reminded.

“Even if they wanted to, and it’s pretty obvious that they don’t, the grown-ups can’t do anything, we have to do this precisely because we’re kids, we’re the only ones who can and will,” Cassie explained.

“I may not understand what you’re trying to do, but I know that it’s dangerous, you are mine to protect this summer, I cannot just knowingly let you run into harm’s way,” Ms. Prince insisted.

“Diana, something called you back to Watchtower County, you said it yourself, you couldn’t escape it, that’s exactly how I feel about doing this, something has brought us together, me and the rest of my team, and I’m not sure what it was, destiny, fate, or otherwise, but we’re here, we’re together, and it’s to save this place, and to get rid of the evil thing in the soil, or the air, or the water, wherever it is, we’re going to get rid of it, I know we can, you just have to trust us,” Cassie said. 

Ms. Prince looked Cassie up and down, then she smiled fondly. “You have the instincts of a warrior, even if I tried to stop you, I would fail.”

“Really?” Cassie asked.

“So long as you look out for yourself, and your friends, I see no reason why to keep you from what you must do, I trust you, Cassandra,” Ms. Prince said.

“Thank you.” Cassie grinned.

“Now, let us see.” Ms. Prince nodded, then she reached for a book on the shelf. “Yes, in that case, this would be the book you’re looking for.”

The book was old and heavy, and it kind of smelled. Cassie took it anyways. Her heart started to pound in her ears the moment the leather cover touched her fingertips. She swallowed, but her mouth still felt dry. It was something like the feeling she got on the shore under Mount Justice. The feeling that she was inseparably a part of something. This was exactly what they were looking for, she could feel it before she even opened to the first page.

“Thank you,” Cassie whispered.

“Take good care of it,” Diana instructed, “and of yourself as well, stay safe, above all things.”

“Of course, I will,” Cassie agreed, somewhat absently as she was flipping through stiff pages that crinkled when she breathed on them, her eyes wide so that she could take in every picture they showed, and she couldn’t really decipher most of them, but there was a feeling in her gut that they were important. “Thank you so much Diana, this is exactly what we needed, I have to get this to Ms. Gordon, right away.”

With that final cry, Cassie was running, Diana followed to the front porch to watch her run across the street, book held tightly to her chest as if afraid someone unwanted may notice it. It was dangerous out there, wherever she was going. But Diana turned around and went back inside without sparing it another thought.

After all, it was just one of those things that were none of her business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just noticed, we're more than halfway through this story, wow. This isn't necessarily a chapter I was happy with, but a chapter that had to happen, there's only I think one more of these in the rest of the story, sorry. Also, fun fact, in the original draft of this chapter, I had Lilith Clay in Raven's place, because she was actually dead, but I switched it to Raven because it seemed to suit her character better. I went to see Venom last night with my roommate, and it was really enjoyable, like, technically speaking it was not perfect, and the first act fell a little flat in my opinion, but it really picks up when Venom actually appears, I would highly recommend it, I thought it was really funny. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	18. The Team Together

Tim was late.

None of them had known Tim for very long, but still, that seemed very wrong. Gordon had known him longer, and she was sure that was wrong, but she was too distracted to really do anything about it.

“I think we need a team name,” Bart told his friends while they pretended not to be expectantly watching the door. Gordon was reading the book Cassie had brought her in absolute silence. The only sign that she was still alive and not an unblinking stone statue was whenever she let the pages turn.

“A what?” Cassie asked, turning her attention away from the door when Bart spoke up at last. He had been tapping his foot anxiously for almost a minute straight since his last attempt to spark conversation. The previous topic had been why he wore boots to bed, not just socks, but legitimate boots, Conner confirmed this, as he had been unfortunate enough to see them when he slept over (it was because the floor was cold in the morning, and he didn’t like it).

“A team name,” Bart explained.

“Okay, why would we need a team name?” Conner asked.

“Because all the coolest teams have a cool team name, and we’re the coolest team, so we need the coolest team name,” Bart said.

Conner and Cassie looked to each other and shrugged.

“I don’t think we really need a team name,” Cassie said.

“Yeah, we’re sort of just us,” Conner agreed.

“But that’s so lame,” Bart whined, “we’re so much cooler than just us.”

“I think we’re fine without a team name,” Conner said.

“Yeah, just us, the team,” Cassie agreed.

“You guys are so lame,” Bart said.

“It’s like everyone’s forgotten about Greta,” Conner suddenly interrupted, turning the conversation sober, if only to avoid letting Bart choose the topic again.

“Who?” Cassie asked.

“The girl who went missing,” Conner nodded towards the poster on the wall, which was no longer a picture or Greta Hayes, but Eddie Bloomberg.

“Oh, right,” Cassie recalled that the picture had been different the last time she had been in the room.

“It’s like she doesn’t even exist anymore, because there’s only room for one missing kid in this town,” Conner observed.

Bart shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hated thinking about that. How kids went missing and never came back and were eventually forgotten. That was the worst part. When no one even cared that they were gone anymore. And it might have sounded stupid, considering that Bart was volunteering to search for the missing kids, but if he forgot about that part, it was almost like it was just a fun story. Like a video game, or an adventure. And that was fun.

“Can we not talk about it?” He suggested.

The door threw itself open. Tim was red in the face and his breath shuddered as he tried to get his heart pumping at a resting rate again.

Conner’s chair clattered to the floor when he jumped up.

“Tim are you okay?”

“What happened to you?” Cassie asked.

“Quick, yes or yes question, should we have a team name? Say yes,” Bart said as quickly as he could.

“What?” Tim asked, trying to figure out if Bart had said actual human words of just made various unintelligible sounds and pretended to be a human being.

“Should we have a team name, just say yes,” Bart requested.

“Why would we need a team name?” Tim asked.

“Just say yes,” Bart pleaded.

“No, that’s stupid, we’re just the kids out to kill It, we’re just us,” Tim said.

“That’s what I said,” Conner said.

“Tim,” Gordon cut in before Bart could pit one more argument in the favor of team names. She stared at the late boy over the rims of her glasses like the angry librarian she was. “Where have you been?”

“Alfred locked my bike in the garage, so I had to pry it open with a crowbar,” Tim replied.

Gordon sighed. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, letting her glasses ride up, having been forced to listen to Bart, Cassie, and Conner talk while she had been trying to read was an all-new form of trying her patience and she was greatly uninterested in trying it again, and Tim wasn’t helping with his explanation. “Why would Alfred lock your bike in the garage? What did you do?”

“Dick thinks I’m getting bad again,” Tim confessed, sinking into the same seat between Cassie and Gordon that he had used last time they were in the room.

Gordon understood, she nodded patiently. “It’s okay, it’s almost over now.”

Tim nodded as well, although he didn’t look her in the eye. “I see you got the smartboard fixed.”

“I’m efficient, thank you for noticing,” Barbara said.

“Wait, go back,” Cassie requested, “get bad again? What does that mean?” 

“It means my brother wants me to go to a therapist because he thinks I’m going to try to kill myself, and he’s already got Alfred in on it so they’re trying to keep me away from my bike, so I can’t ride off to die somewhere they’ll never find me, which is stupid, because as if that would stop me, if I really wanted to die, I would just slit my wrists or overdose on meds, I wouldn’t need to go anywhere,” Tim bluntly stated. His team stared.

“Oh,” Cassie said.

“Is that, like, a danger for you?” Conner asked, “I don’t want to pry or anything, but should we be worried about you?”

“You said he was worried you were getting bad again,” Bart pointed out, “did you try to do something like that before?”

“It’s fine,” Tim said, “I’m not actually suicidal, I never have been, he just thinks that I am.”

“Uh-huh, and I’m just wondering why he would think that,” Conner asked.

“Why do you need to know?” Tim asked.

“We did this yesterday, your business is our business, we don’t keep secrets, we’re in this together, a team,” Conner reminded.

“A team that needs a name,” Bart whispered.

Tim looked to Gordon as if needing permission from her before he spoke. She nodded patiently.

“I’m sure you noticed down at Mount Justice.” Tim ran a hand over the front of his t-shirt, tracing along where he knew every one of them were.

“The scars?” Bart asked.

“It didn’t look like the kind of thing you would want to talk about, so I didn’t ask,” Cassie said.

“Me too,” Conner agreed.

“You’re right, I don’t want to talk about it,” Tim said, he breathed in slow and deep as his fingers traced back and forth over where he knew the first scar in his chest was. “But I think I should anyways.” And Tim told them everything, once and for all, no more secrets.

They sat in silence for a moment while Tim’s hands trembled. Cassie carefully lay one of her hands over his, and at last the air was cleared.

“You were only nine,” Conner said.

“Yeah, I was,” Tim confirmed.

“Are you okay?” Cassie asked.

“I’ll be a hell of a lot better once we kill this fucking clown,” Tim said.

“Okay,” Cassie agreed.

“Then let’s kill ourselves a clown,” Conner decided.

“Alright Babsy, you’ve been pretty excited about that big boring book of yours, what have you got for us?” Bart asked.

Ms. Gordon looked him so directly in the eye for so long Bart thought she might be trying to kill him with secret psychic genius powers. “You will call me Ms. Gordon, and only Ms. Gordon, do you understand me?”

“Tim calls you Barbara,” Bart pointed out.

“I’ve known Tim for three years, he’s like a brother,” Gordon said, “I have known you for two days, and you spent most of them giving me a headache, you will call me Ms. Gordon, do you understand me?”

“Yes Ms. Gordon,” Bart begrudgingly agreed.

“Thank you.”

“What’s that you have there?” Tim asked, nodding towards Ms. Prince’s book.

“I’m glad you asked, Tim,” Gordon said, “Cassie brought this for us from Ms. Prince’s private collection, it’s exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

“What is it that we’ve been looking for?” Conner asked.

Gordon lay the pages she was looking at flat, mainly for Tim to see since she knew he was the only one who would understand.

“These are journal pages,” Tim realized, pulling the book to himself, he flipped through the pages quickly, really only skimming them, because he knew Gordon would explain for herself what he was reading.

“Hey.” Bart reached out to touch the pages himself, but Gordon smacked his irregularly sticky hands away.

“That’s right, this is the book of everything Watchtower County has ever tried to bury, every black spot they’ve ever erased, going back to long begore they had digital records, back when it was easier to make events and people disappear,” Gordon said. “The first sighting of It was not in 1,627, but in 1,600, there’s a record of a prior attempt at colonization, really just a campsite. The first thing to do, as any good survivalist knows, the first thing to do when settling is to find drinkable water, so the people started building a well. But the deeper they dug, the more people started talking about something strange happening, something evil. The journal entries describe strange encounters until the completion of the well, then they disappear without a trace. No one came back to that well until the charter was signed twenty-seven years later.”

“Where is the well now?” Tim asked.

Gordon took the book halfway back. “It isn’t on any of the modern maps, for all we know, it’s been filled up, although I highly doubt it, but there’s a map, from 1,627 that shows the town as it was then, well and all, I can try comparing the two maps and have an answer for you in maybe ten minutes.”

“Perfect,” Tim said.

“Hey,” Bart said again.

“I guess it was something in the water after all,” Cassie observed.

“What?” Gordon asked.

“Nothing, it’s just something Diana said earlier,” Cassie said.

“Hey,” Bart called, bringing the attention back to himself. 

“Yes, Bart,” Gordon finally gave in, “what is it?”

“What’s this page right here?” He leafed through a page near the very end. An irregular page sticking out of the corner. New, pure white rather than the yellowed hue of the rest of the book, just peeking out of the corner, but the moment they all saw it, it was the only thing any of them could noticed.

“I don’t know,” Gordon confessed. She flipped to the page herself. It was a loose piece of paper, hidden in the back of the book, a secret note, it was white, blank.

At least, it was to her eyes.

 

_YOU AREN’T THE ONLY KIDS AROUND HERE_

 

A chill ran through four spines at once.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Conner asked.

“What does it say?” Gordon wondered.

“It says we aren’t the only kids around here,” Bart read.

“A warning,” Cassie realized.

“It’s going to kill-to take someone,” Conner agreed, changing his claim for his friend’s sake before he could act up.

“Who?” Bart asked.

“How should I know?” Cassie asked.

“Someone you know, It wants to scare you, that’s all it ever wants, to warn you, give you hope that you can do something before It takes someone else,” Barbara deduced.

“It can’t hurt anyone if they’re with an adult, right? No matter how scared he is, that’s what you said,” Conner asked, not liking the conclusion that Barbara’s reasoning was leading him to.

“Yes,” Barbara agreed. Conner relaxed. Jon was safe. Conner made him swear that he wouldn’t leave his father’s side all day, Kent had offered to finally buy him that new chalk, so it wasn’t a difficult deal to settle, at least, it wasn’t until Conner said that he was going out again, then Jon cried. Begging his brother not to leave him alone, even though he wasn’t really alone, he had their father with him, which was better protection than Conner could hope to offer. His protection was on the offensive stance. He protected by killing the thing that was doing the threatening. And he would keep his brother safe, no matter what it took. Still, it was a comfort to know that the warning didn’t refer to his brother.

Tim stood up, stiff and frightened.

“Tim?” Bart said.

“I need to get home,” Tim decided.

“What? Why?” Cassie asked.

“My brother, I left Damian home alone,” Tim said. He took his phone out of his pocket and punched in the first number on his speed dial, then he turned on his heel and sprinted away as fast as he could. “Dick! You need to get home right now, Damian’s in danger, I don’t have time for questions, I’ll meet you there.”

“Tim, wait!” Conner called, but Tim was gone. By the time Conner was calling for him, Tim was boarding his bike, hoping he wouldn’t be too late.

“Should we wait?” Cassie asked.

“I don’t like this,” Barbara said.

“Why?” Conner asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Barbara said.

“Do you want us to go after him?” Conner suggested. 

Barbara thought about that for a moment. “Even if you did go after him, you wouldn’t catch up,” Barbara pointed out.

“So, what do we do?” Cassie wondered.

“Go home,” Barbara decided, “Get some rest, you’ll need it tomorrow, we’ll know where to find It.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that I couldn't use my fancy fonts on. Oh well, I'm pretty sure this was the last one. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	19. Jason Comes Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sister drew art for this chapter a while ago too: https://allyallyorangeart.tumblr.com/post/177682762086/allyallyorange-some-more-horror-stuff

There weren’t many pictures left of Jason in the house. Well, there were, but Wayne had long since collected them all out of their frames and hidden them somewhere far away where he didn’t have to look at them and remember. Or maybe he looked at them every night before he went to sleep, just to torture and make himself miserable, Damian didn’t know. He supposed his siblings had found it odd, that the family pictures hanging on the wall slowly changed, and Jason wasn’t in them anymore. Damian wasn’t fazed, he had only been five when Jason disappeared, he could hardly remember a picture that did have Jason’s face in it. According to the pictures, it was almost like Jason had never been there to begin with. He knew that wasn’t true, he could feel it everywhere he went in their house, but sometimes he wished it was.

Wayne had done a good job of scrubbing the walls and the mantles of the house of any trace of Jason, but there was still one place where he could be remembered. Because Wayne wasn’t allowed to touch anything in Pennyworth’s kitchen, even the pictures on the fridge. Even then, there was only one picture of his elusive second brother on the fridge among the pictures of an unhappy family playing nice and old drawings that Damian himself had gifted years ago, but it was enough to keep the image of him alive whenever Damian realized he couldn’t remember what the person he hated so much looked like. It was his last school picture, the one they had used on the missing posters, Dick told him. He looked happy, even though he was in school being ordered to smile for a camera, Dick also told him that Jason loved school, all aspects of it. Damian hated school. He always would, and he didn’t care how much Jason adored it.

Damian took the picture off the fridge. It wasn’t like there was anyone there to stop him, he only ever went to see Jason when there was no chance anyone would catch him. Jason just kept smiling. In only a couple weeks more, Tim was going to be older than Jason had ever been, Damian hated the thought of that. He hated the thought of Jason.

A hand, heavy and wet lay on Damian’s shoulder.

“Boo,” whispered a distorted, raspy voice too close to his ear.

Damian threw himself away from his mystery assailant, throwing his arm around slightly to shake him off. The hand withdrew easily, giving Damian room to spin around. And Damian froze.

Standing before him, in his grey rain jacket zipped up to his chin, grinning, as he was immortalized in the picture. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was a different grin, an almost hurting grin. Like someone had grabbed the corners of his mouth and held them as far apart from each other as they could go until they just stuck there, and there was nothing Jason could do about it.

That was when Damian felt something in his hand. Something other than the picture. It was warm and heavy and sticky and wet and when Damian looked down, he saw that it was red. Leaking from the photograph’s eyes like tears. Damian threw the picture away from him with a sharp cry.

He looked up, and there was no one before him anymore.

He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief right there, call it an illusion. But that was when the music started. The low chiming sound of a nursery rhyme on a music box.

“Jason?” Damian asked. His voice trembled, and he hated it.

“Damian?” Jason whispered back, right in his ear again. Damian spun around again. He tried to lash out, but he only met empty air.

Jason stared down at him through hollowed out eye-sockets, eyelids and all carved away so his little brother could see exactly where those blue eyes he remembered so vaguely where supposed to be. Blood still leaked from the hollows. His throat was slashed open wide, blood was still oozing out of that scar as well. His boots were full of blood so that whenever he moved it would overflow onto the floor. His raincoat and hands were covered in the blood as well, still wet, so that everything he touched or touched him was streaked red. And to top it all off, he was still grinning.

“Jason?” He wanted to look away, to avoid eye contact with those awful empty spheres, but he stared, as if in a trance. And Damian had to remind himself that whatever horror was standing before him, it was not his brother, it couldn’t be his brother, because his brother was long-dead.

“Damian?’ He didn’t know how the thing that looked like his brother spoke, with the state of his throat being what it was, but he did it anyways. 

“What happened to you?” Damian asked with that awful trembling voice that he hated but couldn’t help.

“I think you mean welcome home, we missed you,” the horror corrected.

“No,” Damian said, “you can’t be here.”

“Why not? This is my home too,” he said.

“No, it isn’t, you’re supposed to be dead, you are dead,” Damian insisted.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“You’ve been gone for three years,” Damian said.

“A missing person isn’t declared dead until it’s been seven,” he pointed out.

“We looked for you, we did everything we could, but you were gone, and you still are, none of this is real,” Damian cried.

And that’s when the thing started to laugh, high and shrill and un-Jason-like entirely. “You never looked for me.”

“Father did, so did Selina, and Dick, and Tim never stopped.” Damian curled his fists tightly when he thought about that.

“And what about you?” he asked.

“I was five,” Damian defended himself.

“And you just left me there,” he said.

“No.”

“You never came for me.”

“No,” Damian insisted. He took a step backwards, but Jason took a step after him, blood coming sloshing out of his boots.

“You left me down there,” he said, “you left me with that monster.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Damian decided.

“You let It do this,” he said.

“You disappeared,” Damian cried, “you disappeared, and you’re dead now, and that isn’t my fault, you can’t just come back after all this time and act like that’s all it’s going to take to make everything better.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked.

“No!” Damian said.

“Then what would make it better?” he wondered. “I can make it better, everything’s better when you float.”

“Everything is fine without you,” Damian said.

“Then why is everyone so sad?” Jason asked.

“We aren’t sad,” Damian decided.

“Would it be better if I made Timberly disappear too?” The thing reached out, and Damian flinched, but he wasn’t reaching for him. There was a picture on the wall next to Damian. A picture of him with all of his real, living siblings, happy. Or at least pretending to be. He pressed his fingers where Tim’s eyes were, so that when he moved, it looked just like Jason’s last school picture that Damian had tossed aside in horror.

“Don’t,” Damian pleaded.

“But wouldn’t it be so much better without him?” he asked. “You never did like him very much, and he makes daddy so very sad.”

“Jason,” Damian begged.

“He’s just begging to go missing anyways,” he pointed out, “always sneaking out, breaking the rules, how much longer do you think until we get him? And he ends up just like me?”

“Don’t touch my family,” Damian ordered.

“Ouch, Dami, I’m hurt, aren’t I your family too?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you are, but you aren’t my brother,” Damian said.

“You talk a big game, you always did.” The empty sockets in his head never left Damian’s eyes when he leaned close and whispered, “but I know better, you’re even more scared than I was.”

“Don’t hurt my family,” Damian repeated pretending that his knees didn’t shake when he stared into those empty holes.

“I’m not going to do a thing,” he said, he was so close that more blood was dripping from his eyes and throat all over Damian’s already stained shoulder. “It is.”

“What?” Damian asked.

The terrible grin on his face faded all at once into a look of raw fear. “Damian?” he whispered, soft and familiar, a voice Damian finally remembered somewhere deep in his memory.

“Jason?” Damian wondered.

“Run,” Jason instructed.

For a split second, there was quiet, and Damian was more confused than he was afraid. Then Jason wordlessly nodded his head toward the doorway. Damian let his eyes tear away from the socket’s in his brother’s skull to look behind him

It grinned wider than Jason did. Lanky and tall, pale skin and green hair, just like Tim always described in his horror stories.

“Damian! Run!” Jason ordered as It opened Its permanent grinning mouth to reveal rows upon rows of pointed yellow teeth. Damian dove out of the way on Jason’s order. Then he looked up, and the figure of his brother was gone.

“Jason?” Damian called. But it was just him and It, and that was so much scarier than Jason could ever be.

“Come here Dami,” It instructed through all Its teeth, “I’ll help you find him.”

Damian took another step back as It took another forward.

“I’ll help you float too,” It said.

Damian did exactly what his brother had told him. He ran, as if there was anywhere to run to. Somehow, around all those teeth It smiled wider as It happily took up the chase. It lunged, and Damian ducked, whoever was still playing the music box in the background was winding it much too fast.

Damian slid under It when It lunged for him, the path the door open for an instant. He turned over his shoulder to watch It’s head turn 180 degrees, and then the rest of the body to twist after it. Damian screamed.

Then he collided with something warm in the doorway. Damian screamed louder, trying to push away, whatever it was, it held him tighter. Damian squeezed his eyes shut tight. Certain that everything was over.

“Don’t fucking touch him!”

Then It made and awful screeching pained hiss.

Damian opened one eye to peek.

Tim stood in front of him with a crowbar raised over his shoulder, ready to strike again if needed. It raised a gloved hand to Its forehead. It hissed when it came away red. It turned those terrible yellow eyes towards his brother, trying so hard to be brave. It grinned again, one last time before it slunk away into the shadows. Tim’s trembling hands dropped the crowbar to the floor with a clang.

“What the fuck was that thing?” Damian had completely forgotten about whatever had him trapped, he looked up to see Dick, still in uniform holding him tightly.

“That,” Tim replied, “is what I’ve been trying to tell you about. That’s It.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, finally I'm gonna get to post some actual family bonding and healing tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	20. Listening

“Tim! Are you okay? How did you get your bike out of the garage?” Dick asked, pulling into the driveway just as he witnessed his brother jumping off his bike as he always did. Shaky legs missed the landing and he skid a few meters across the ground hissing in pain.

“Damian’s in danger,” Tim replied, forcing himself back to his feet.

“What? Tim, you’re bleeding, sit down,” Dick ordered.

“We don’t have time for this,” Tim said, quickly grabbing the crowbar he had left near the garage. The pieces silently came together in Dick’s head.

“Tim, why?” Dick chastised.

Tim just grabbed Dick’s wrist with his spare hand and started dragging him towards the door.

“Tim, what is going on?” Dick asked.

And then he got to the kitchen, with the thing with all the teeth and Damian running towards him, screaming. On instinct, Dick let go of Tim’s hand to wrap his arms protectively around his youngest brother, and Tim took to opportunity to lunge towards the oncoming thing, crowbar from the garage raised high.

“Don’t fucking touch him!” Tim screamed before he slammed the crowbar against the thing’s head as hard as he could. It made some sort of inhuman hissing noise before It vanished from their kitchen. It all happened so fast Dick barely felt like he had to opportunity to take a single breath during the course of all of it.

So, he took a breath. “What the fuck was that thing?” He demanded once he was done. Damian shifted in his arms, looking up to see his brother before all but melting into the protective hold.

“That,” Tim replied, “is what I’ve been trying to tell you about. That’s It.”

“Tim,” Dick said, unwrapping one arm from around Damian to beckon his other younger brother.

“What?” Tim asked.

“Get over here,” Dick ordered.

“What is it?” Tim asked again before Dick wordlessly wrapped his arm around Tim as well. Holding both his little brothers as tight as he could. 

“Damian?” Tim asked within Dick’s hold.

Damian grunted quietly in reply.

“Are you okay?” Tim asked.

Damian made a soft noncommittal noise.

“Did It hurt you?”

He felt Damian slowly shake his head.

“I’m so sorry, a never should have left you home alone,” Tim whispered. He maneuvered as well as he could to hug Damian himself. For once, the youngest Wayne didn’t protest the extra contact.

And the brothers just stood there, taking silent comfort in each other for as long as they needed.

Then things got uncomfortable.

“Okay,” Tim interrupted the moment after an absurd amount of time had officially passed, “Dick? You can let go now.”

“No,” Dick said, “I’m not letting either of you go ever again.”

“I don’t think that’s really going to work for either of us,” Tim said.

“Too bad.” Dick held them both closer somehow, “and whenever Cass gets home, I’m never gonna let her go either.”

“Yeah, that definitely isn’t going to work for her,” Tim said, trying to push himself away again. “You’re gonna have to let go now.”

“No,” Dick said. “What the fuck was that thing?”

“I told you, that’s It.”

“But what is It?”

“We don’t really know, we’ve just been calling it: It,” Tim replied.

“I won’t let It hurt you,” Dick swore, “I won’t let It anywhere near you.”

Tim paused for the briefest of moments. “Yeah, that absolutely isn’t going to work with me, I’m actually on the verge of a breakthrough with Barbara and the team, I should probably be getting back to them.”

“No,” Dick decided.

“Dick, I have to,” Tim said.

“No,” Dick insisted.

“Dick, listen to me,” Tim requested.

“No, Tim, whatever you’ve been doing? Hunting this thing or whatever? It stops now, I’m never letting either of you out of my sight for the rest of your lives, do you understand me?” Dick asked.

“Dick, you still aren’t listening, you never listen,” Tim said.

Dick paused. “You’re right.”

“I’m not crazy, you know that now, you’ve seen the proof for yourself, so why won’t you finally listen to me?” Tim wondered.

“Okay,” Dick agreed, “you’re right, but I’m listening as of right now, I promise, tell me everything, I’ll listen this time.”

“Thank you.” Tim waited a moment. “Are you going to let go now?”

“No, I can hug and listen at the same time,” Dick said.

“Okay then,” Tim agreed. And he told them everything, one more time. He had tried to tell them so many times before, but they never listened. They were listening now.

He told them all about everything. About three years ago. About when he met It in that same kitchen and that could have been it for him if Dick hadn’t come along. About meeting Barbara in the library by accident once he had been discharged from the hospital and started his search. About the three years he had spent waiting, researching, preparing himself. About searching every gutter in town when Greta Hayes went missing looking for her body. About the sudden development in the past week leading to the formation of his team. About Bart, who was impulsive and talked too much. About Cassie who was feisty and had bad style. About Conner, who was over-confident and kind of charming. About his team, who he was starting to like. About encountering It in the library and Lane coming to get Conner. About visiting Mount Justice with them, and the strange feeling he got that they were all a part of something, something no one else could touch. About the book Cassie had brought from Ms. Prince’s private collection. About the warning in the back of the book. And before any of them knew it, they were all caught up.

“And that’s it,” Tim finished.

“What can I do?” Damian piped up from the middle of the hug.

“What?” Tim asked.

“Physically speaking, I’m young too, it can come after me just as easily as it can come after you, easier perhaps, I can help too,” Damian said.

“Damian, no, it’s too dangerous,” Tim decided.

“You get to do it,” Damian pointed out.

“I think it’s too dangerous for both of you,” Dick said, “both of you should stay home for the rest of Summer, and I’ll take care of this thing.”

“Dick, no, that’s stupid you’re a grown up, there’s nothing you can do, it won’t even appear for you, let alone let you kill it,” Tim explained.

“I’m pretty sure I literally just saw it,” Dick pointed out.

“That was an anomaly, because we weren’t supposed to be here and caught it off guard, or something, I don’t understand exactly how it works, but this is like, a one in ten million chance, the odds of it ever letting you catch it again are phenomenally low,” Tim said.

“I don’t care, I don’t want either of you getting any more involved in this,” Dick insisted.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Tim said, “I’m already involved, and I’m going to kill this thing, whether you want me to or not.”

“No.”

“Dick, I can handle this, I’m not alone, I know what I’m doing,” Tim said.

“I could watch your back far better than this so-called team of yours can,” Damian suggested.

“No, Damian, absolutely not, you want to help? Stay with Dick, and stay out of trouble,” Tim decided.

“Gee, I can think of one other person who should stay with Dick and stay out of trouble,” Dick observed.

“Dick, please.” Tim tried to push himself away again, but Dick was still holding fast, which was really a poor argument towards Tim’s physical ability to fight a cursed clown argument, but neither of them were really thinking of that. “Please trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

“Then trust that I can do this.”

“But what if you don’t come back?” Dick asked. Tim felt water matting the hair on his head and Dick’s voice wobbled when he spoke. “What if I lose you to this thing too? Tim, I can’t do that, you can’t ask me to lose you.”

“That’s not what I’m doing at all,” Tim said, “I’m just asking you to trust me. Trust that I know what I’m doing, and I can handle this.”

“I don’t want to,” Dick said.

“Please,” Tim begged, “Dick, this is the only chance we have to find out what happened to Jason, and I know he isn’t dead, and I won’t believe he is until I know for sure, I need to know where he is.”

“Tim, I know you don’t want to believe it, but I think this proves more than anything else that Jason is gone,” Dick reasoned.

“The only proof will be if I find his corpse at the bottom of that well,” Tim snapped. “And dead or not, he would want me to find him.”

Dick kept finding ways to squeeze his brothers closer, it was a miracle he hadn’t suffocated either of them yet, but this time, after pulling them close, he did what he didn’t think he was capable of, he let go. Not completely, he just held them at arms-length to get a good look at them both. Damian had left a tear stain on his shirt, and Dick’s eyes were rimmed red from crying himself. It was ironic, Tim thought, that the kid they thought wasn’t tough enough to handle the monster was the only one among them with his eyes dry. Maybe because they were caught off guard, and he’s been ready, waiting for three years.

“Before I say yes, I have rules, whatever this librarian lady Barbara’s job is? Being your advisor or whatever? Yeah, that’s my job now, I want to be involved as much as I can, you don’t leave this house with It-hunting intent without me hearing about it, do you understand?” Dick asked.

“I could always sneak out in the middle of the night, you know, I do it all the time, even if you had told me I can’t do this, I would sneak out and do it anyways, you know that, right?” Tim said.

“Yeah, rule two, you’re never going to get away with sneaking out again, because as of right now, I will be checking in on you every night to make sure you’re still there,” Dick announced.

“You say that as if dad doesn’t already check on me in the middle of the night to make sure I’m still there,” Tim pointed out.

“Fair enough,” Dick agreed, then he thought about Tim’s statement for a moment. “Wait, how do you get away with sneaking out if dad’s watching?”

“It’s a secret,” Tim said.

Dick rolled his eyes and laughed a little. It was a tense laugh, still weighed down by the situation they were dealing with. “Okay, those are my conditions, I’m your new Barbara, you tell me everything, and you don’t sneak out anymore, and only then can you maybe leave this house again for the rest of summer.”

“One problem: you can’t replace Barbara, she’s the best, she’s been hunting and researching It since she was a teenager, the only reason It’s still alive is because she’s a grown-up now, and she can’t kill it herself, which is why she needs the team and me, but, I can introduce you to her, and she can find you something to do, I’m sure,” Tim amended.

“I don’t want to meet your old librarian friend,” Dick said.

“She is not old, I’ve told you this.” Tim insisted.

“Uh-huh, yeah sure,” Dick agreed sarcastically.

“She isn’t!” Tim cried.

“Okay, fine, I’ll meet the old lady,” Dick agreed.

“Okay, don’t ever call her that again and you’ve got yourself a deal,” Tim said.

“This would be much more efficient if you let me help as well,” Damian declared.

“You’re too young,” Tim said.

“You must be at least this tall to fight horrific sewer clowns,” Dick agreed, raising his hand an inch above Tim’s head. Tim just stood on his tip-toes.

“That isn’t fair,” Damian grumbled.

A loud knocking came to the door, the brothers all jumped to turn. The person kept knocking insistently.

“Maybe it’s Cass coming home?” Dick suggested.

“Cass would only knock twice, she always only knocks twice,” Tim recalled. He knew his sister, he knew she was very reliable to do that.

“Well? Why are you two just standing around for? Someone get the door,” Damian ordered.

“You know, you could get it yourself,” Tim pointed out.

For all his tough talk about wanting to help, Damian tensed at the idea of leaving his brother’s side, even for a moment to get the door.

“Let’s just all go get it together, okay?” Dick decided.

Damian held tightly to Dick’s hand, he quietly said that it was so Dick would feel safer, which Dick didn’t challenge him on, especially when he grabbed Tim by the shoulder, making both of the younger boys jump, although Dick wasn’t quite sure why, when he tried to take the lead.

Dick was the one to open the door, releasing Tim’s shoulder to do so, but pushing his brother behind him somewhat to take a protective stance. 

“Hello?” Officer Grayson greeted Conner Kent standing in their doorway.

“Hi,” Conner said.

Of course, Grayson recognized Conner as the kid who threw up all over his clothes, so both of them stood very uncomfortable for a moment.

“Can I help you?” Dick asked.

“Yeah, I’m just looking for Tim,” Conner confessed.

“Right here,” Tim said as he ducked under Dick’s arm to properly face his friend, “what are you doing here?”

“Well, you sort of ran off in the middle of a meeting, I was, and the rest of the team, obviously, we were all worried, are you okay?” Conner asked.

“We’re fine now, thanks for coming after me,” Tim said.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Cool.” Conner smiled at Damian when he caught the younger boy’s eye. “Is this the little brother you mentioned before running off?”

“Yeah, this is Damian, he’s okay now,” Tim agreed.

Damian growled with distaste.

“Cute, he looks like he’s around Jon’s age,” Conner said.

“I am not cute!” Damian guffawed.

“How old is Jon?” Tim asked.

“Five.”

Damian’s face twisted into an expression of distaste never before documented by man. “How dare you!”

“Damian’s eight,” Tim said.

“Oh, sorry, he’s short,” Conner excused himself.

“He will see to it that you lose your kneecaps! Fool! You are unworthy to support my brother!” Damian threatened.

“Excuse me?” Conner asked.

"If my brother gets hurt because of you, I will kill you myself," Damian warned.

“Conner, maybe you should just go home, Damian’s a little upset,” Tim said, he shot his younger brother a glare.

“Are you sure?” Conner asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine, go,” Tim encouraged.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow? Big day,” Conner said.

“Is it?”

“Ms. Gordon says we’ll know where It is tomorrow, that makes it hunting day,” Conner said.

“Oh.” Tim glanced at each brother, who both looked worried. “That’s great, I’ll meet you guys at the library.”

“Great, don’t be late,” Conner encouraged. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, there was supposed to be a point in this story where It gets identified as the Joker, but it sort of never happened. A lot of things never happened that were in the original plans for the story, I thought I was going to be able to fit an entire subplot with Bart and Wally in here, but that never happened either. Also, for anyone worrying that Bart hasn't seemed to get as much attention as the rest of the team, it's coming up very soon. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.


	21. Hunting Day

“I still don’t get why we need to meet your old lady friend,” Dick was still saying as he drove his brother to the library well under the speed limit, Damian was left home with Pennyworth and instructed to stay safe despite his protests that he should go too.

“She’s not old,” Tim said again.

“I’m going to read whatever you tell me to, I don’t need the librarian to read to me,” Dick complained.

“Barbara’s the expert, and with any luck this will be the last day, so even if I wanted to replace her with you, which I absolutely do not, because she’s better than you, but even if you could, I don’t have to time to catch you up to where she is, so if you want to be of any help, you can help her,” Tim said.

“Are you sure you want to do this today? Maybe we should wait a little longer, prepare a bit more,” Dick suggested.

“Barbara and I have been preparing for three years, and the longer we wait, the more likely it is that someone else will get hurt,” Tim pointed out.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

“Dick?”

“Have you changed your mind?”

“No, but can you park the car, so I can get out? I don’t want to be late again.” Even though they had come early to give Dick the crash course.

They were in the library parking lot, Tim already with his seatbelt unbuckled. Patiently waiting for his brother to let him out.

“Right,” Dick agreed, and he put the car in park. Tim didn’t hesitate when he opened the door and hopped right out.

“Are you coming?” Dick didn’t realize he had just been sitting there, staring.

“Yeah,” Dick said. He locked the car door behind him and followed his brother to the big heavy doors. “Okay, let’s meet the old lady.”

Tim scowled and rolled his eyes, he dragged his brother towards the usual study room with just a nod towards Charlie, knowing that Gordon would already be waiting for him, since they had actually scheduled a time. He led Dick all the way to the study room in silence and opened the door with an almost snobbish I-told-you-so attitude.

“Dick, this is Barbara,” Tim introduced.

“Hey, Tim,” Gordon greeted without looking up from her books.

Dick swore he heard Careless Whisper playing in the background when he saw the very clearly not old redheaded woman sitting at that table.

“Barbara, this is my older brother, Dick, he wants to help,” Tim said.

Gordon glanced up to see Dick, she returned her gaze to her books, then she did a double take to look up at Dick again. She looked him up and down and then she looked him back up again. “Officer Grayson, isn’t it?” She recalled.

“That would be me,” Officer Grayson agreed. He smiled a charming smile, the kind he only offered pretty redheaded women when he didn’t think his family would notice. But Tim was standing right there, and he most certainly noticed.

“How can I help you today?” Gordon asked.

“He wants to help,” Tim answered first. He told Gordon the story of the day before and everything that happened in the kitchen. Then he told her about Grayson’s conditions to let him continue to work with her.

Gordon rose an amused eyebrow at Grayson. “You think you could do my job?” She challenged.

“That isn’t exactly what I said,” Grayson insisted.

“Yes it is,” Tim said, “then he called you old.”

“Oh, did he now?” Gordon’s eyebrow rose higher.

“Well, there are certain stereotypes around your profession, and I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” Grayson said, he gave his brother a rough jab in the back to keep him from saying any more.

“I told him you weren’t old, but he didn’t listen to me,” Tim muttered anyways, so Grayson had to jab him again.

“Right,” Gordon drawled the word out and rolled her eyes slightly. “Well, Officer, have a seat, we’re mainly going to be on tech-support today, the kids are our real heavy-hitters, but I’m sure I can catch you up quickly enough.”

“About that, I was thinking maybe the kids should have a chaperone? Just in case things get dangerous?” Grayson suggested.

Gordon actually laughed at him. “Wow, Tim, didn’t you tell him anything?”

“I tried, but he doesn’t listen,” Tim said. Grayson was fairly certain if It didn’t kill him, he would if he kept talking.

“Tim,” Grayson hissed.

“It’s fine,” Gordon encouraged, “a clown monster that only children can see living in the sewers? It’s pretty hard to believe unless you’ve seen it for yourself, but once you’ve seen it, you can never forget.”

“Yeah,” Grayson agreed, “that’s for sure.”

“Well, sit down, and if you don’t want to listen to your brother, you can listen to me, or you can get out of my library,” Gordon said.

“Yes ma’am.” Grayson took Tim’s usual seat, so he could sit next to Gordon, so Tim took Cassie’s. He watched his brother and the librarian talk through narrowed eyes. Grayson kept smiling that smile and Gordon laughed every time he interrupted her teachings to make a bad pun. He had to watch the two banter back and forth for what must have been at least an hour before the rest of the team arrived at the scheduled time. Tim quickly introduced them all to his brother. Conner apologized for throwing up on his clothes after realizing that he had forgotten to do so in the chaos of yesterday, and Gordon took control of the meeting before Bart could get going.

“Dick, turn on the smartboard for me?” Gordon asked.

“Sure thing,” Grayson agreed. Tim narrowed his eyes even further when he caught Gordon staring as she watched Grayson walk. He gave her a full-on glare when he saw she was holding the remote, she simply grinned and shrugged. Tim rolled his eyes.

The smartboard turned on to a scanned picture of a map of Watchtower County as they recognized it.

“Before we move forward, I just want to make sure one last time that you kids are sure about this,” Gordon said.

“We’re sure,” Conner replied without hesitation.

“It’s going to be dangerous, we don’t know where the well is, you’re going to be fighting It on Its home turf, I can’t guarantee how this one will turn out,” Barbara said.

They all knew what that meant. Getting killed was a very real possibility today.

“You already know I’m seeing this through to the end, I’ll go alone if I have to,” Tim decided.

“You aren’t alone,” Cassie said, “I’m in, there’s too much at stake not to be.”

“If we don’t kill this thing ourselves, It’s just going to take someone else, we can’t just let it happen,” Conner agreed.

“I just want you guys to know, that this has been the best, most fun summer I’ve ever had, and I’m really excited to go fight the final boss with you guys, it’s gonna be really great,” Bart said. The rest of the team had long since given up on trying to tell him it wasn’t supposed to be fun, he was Bart, and if they were honest, they were a little excited for it to be over as well. But mostly terrified.

“Okay then.”

Gordon pressed the button on the remote to the next slide, a scanned picture of the map in Ms. Prince’s book. And finally, a picture of the two maps overlapped, circling the location of the well.

“We have your target,” Gordon announced, “the well is in the house on Coast Street, I’m sure you all know the one.”

The kids all shuddered.

“I hate that place,” Bart said, “it gives me the heebie jeebies.”

“Probably because it’s haunted,” Cassie said.

“Don’t say that! It’s scary enough that we have to go there, I don’t want there to be ghosts too,” Bart said.

“Bart, It literally lives in that house, it is haunted,” Conner pointed out.

“Oh, I don’t like that.”

“You know your mark, everybody gear up.” Gordon emptied a backpack of equipment for the kids onto the table with care. There was a knife that she very specifically handed over to Tim and left Dick gasping with horror.

“Barbara is that a knife?” He asked while Tim showed the other kids how to put the communicators and cameras on.

“What? Did you think I was going to send them in there unprepared and defenceless?” Gordon asked. She had produced her laptop and was clicking away, setting up her system, watching for small screens flick on one by one as the children set themselves up.

“Why are you giving my twelve-year-old brother a knife?” Grayson shrieked.

“Would you rather I send him in there with nothing?” Gordon asked.

“Yes!” Grayson agreed, “Barbara, do you have any idea what happened the last time Tim had a knife?”

“I’ve held a knife in the last three years, and I told you what really happened,” Tim interrupted sharply.

Somehow it was strange having to tell himself that his brother hadn’t tried to kill himself when he was nine. “When did you hold a knife? You weren’t supposed to be doing that,” he asked.

“That’s none of your business,” Tim said.

“Why wouldn’t it be my business? I’m your brother, I’m supposed to be looking out for you,” Grayson said.

“You said you would trust me,” Tim said.

Grayson took a deep breath. It was just hard after three years of silently believing the kid to be crazy. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he agreed. “It’s just, that’s a really big knife.”

“It’s silver,” Gordon explained, “a classic monster-killing material, we don’t actually know what It’s weak to, so Tim and I agreed that keeping to the basics was probably for the best.”

“And Tim has to be the one to have it?” Grayson asked.

“Would you rather I give it to Bart?” Gordon suggested.

“Yes!” Bart agreed, already making grabbing motions for the knife, Tim held it far out of reach.

“No.” Gordon pulled on an earpiece and tapped her mic twice. “Did you kids all hear that?”

Only Cassie didn’t wince at the sound, so Gordon beckoned her over to fix her earpiece while the argument persisted.

“Okay, fair enough, I don’t like it, but I’ll allow it,” Grayson said.

“You know, I don’t actually remember asking you for permission, ever,” Tim pointed out.

“Hey, watch it,” Dick warned, “one word from me and I could have you locked in your room until the end of summer.”

“I would sneak out,” Tim said.

“Does anyone else get the feeling that he really doesn’t want Tim to be here?” Bart quietly asked the rest of his team.

“You think?” Conner asked.

“We’re fine,” Tim interrupted, “Dick understands that this is something that has to be done.”

“I do, I just don’t see why you have to be the one to do it,” Dick said.

“You said you trusted me,” Tim said.

“And I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not scared for you too,” Dick said.

“The kids are hooked up with cameras and microphones, we’ll be able to monitor their every movement, we aren’t sending them out there completely unsupervised,” Gordon said to soothe Grayson’s fears. “Everyone hear this?” She said directly into the mic. The team nodded. “In that case, you’re all clear to go.”

“Alright, Dick, we have to go now, bye,” Tim said, a little too eagerly for his brother’s tastes.

Grayson pulled his brother into a hug and tried not to think about where he would be going when he let go. “Be safe, okay?”

“I will,” Tim agreed. His face was a little warm because he knew his team was watching, but he waited a solid minute before pushing Grayson away.

“Be safe, okay?” Conner taunted as Tim rushed towards the door to catch up.

“Shut up,” he growled, and punched his friend in the shoulder.

Then they were gone, except for the videos on Gordon’s computer, but that wasn’t the same.

“Hey,” Gordon called, “they’re going to be okay.”

“I sure hope so,” Dick agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit it, my sister and I are suckers for DickBabs and the two of them meeting in the library like this was one of the first things she wanted for the AU. My decision to name the street after Coast City should be pretty self explanatory. And as of this chapter we only have about a third of the story left, which is plenty of time for more awful things to happen. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	22. Who's Afraid?

The house on Coast Street was the only house on the entire street, which is why whenever anyone mentioned a house on Coast Street, everyone knew which one it was. Because there was only one. The rest of the street was completely burnt down in a freak accident about twenty-seven years before and never rebuilt, no one really knew why, but everyone did know that there were thirty casualties in the incident, and sixteen people with bodies never found. It happened during a summer. There was only one abandoned old house left on the street. For some reason it never caught fire. The fire died down and all that was left was that house, standing like there had never been a fire at all.

“The heebie jeebies.” Bart so eloquently described their mutual feeling.

“You’ve got that right,” Conner agreed.

The kids stood outside the house for a moment. Just taking in the unsettling sight of the half-decayed building.

“Okay, someone needs to go in,” Gordon announced over their earpieces, making all of them jump in surprise.

“That would be Tim, right?” Cassie suggested.

“What? Why?” Tim asked.

“You are the one with the knife,” Bart pointed out.

“So?”

“So, you should go first,” Cassie agreed.

“I think someone should go before me, like a meat shield, because if I die, no one else knows how to use the knife,” Tim said.

“How hard can it be to use a knife? It isn’t exactly rocket science,” Conner said.

“Watch this.” Tim took the knife in two fingers and tossed it at the door. It stuck straight out like a dart, right above the handle. “You do that, then you can use the knife.”

“Fine, I will,” Conner accepted the challenge, just like Tim knew he would, he marched straight up to the door, not paying close enough attention to notice the rest of the team slowly following on his heels when Tim beckoned them. He didn’t even think about the fact that he was standing right in front of the door until he took the knife out of it only for Tim to snatch it quickly out of his hands.

“You’re in front, open the door,” Tim ordered.

And Conner realized that he was and understood he had been tricked.

“You’re an asshole,” he announced.

“Duly noted, open the door,” Tim said again.

Conner hesitated, Cassie and Bart watched silently, Tim crossed his arms impatiently. The door opened with a slow creek before Conner could quite touch the handle. Everyone flinched.

“Barbara? Are you still there?” Tim asked.

“We’re here, Tim,” Gordon replied.

“Okay.” Tim sighed a breath of relief, but the rest of the team didn’t seem to share his sentiment. The door was open wide now, showing them an open hallway and a flight of stairs. “Conner?”

“I’m going,” he agreed, stepping forwards into the house. Nothing happened. He took another step. Still nothing. “C’mon,” he urged.

The rest of the kids shuffled their feet to follow him inside. Once Cassie was the last to transfer both feet from the porch to the house interior, the sound of static flooded their ears. Bart started to wince when the sound hit sudden and loud, but he recovered quickly. Conner went so far as to throw his earpiece across the floor without hesitation.

“Hey!” Tim shouted over the static in his own ear and ran after the little device. “Do you have any idea how expensive these things are?”

“Sorry, I have sensitive ears,” Conner apologized.

“Be careful,” Tim advised. He tucked Conner’s earpiece into his pocket before raising a hand to his own. “Barbara?”

He was met with empty static.

“Looks like we’re going in blind,” Tim said.

“Can I take this out? It’s annoying,” Bart whined.

“Don’t just in case we get reception again, just turn the volume down low if it starts to bug you too much.” Bart moved to do just that.

“So how are we doing this?” Cassie asked, looking upstairs and to the other exit points from the hallway into unknown rooms.

“Half of us will take the top floor, half the bottom,” Tim suggested.

“Who’s top?” Conner asked.

Tim hummed and considered it for a moment, “Cassie, take Bart, you’re in charge, take your time, we don’t want to miss anything.”

“Got it,” Cassie agreed.

“How come she gets to be in charge?” Bart asked.

“Because she’s stronger than you, and I trust her more, no offence,” Tim said.

“Plenty taken,” Bart pouted.

“I’m stronger than you, does that mean I get to be in charge?” Conner asked.

“No,” Tim said.

“How come?”

“Because I have the knife,” Tim explained with a somewhat cheeky grain.

“Total ass,” Conner grumbled.

“C’mon Bart, let’s get going,” Cassie urged.

“I’m coming,” Bart agreed and followed her upstairs, Tim and Conner took the door to their left, leading to a cobweb-covered living room.

The stairs creaked like they were about to collapse beneath them with every step, so Cassie and Bart moved slowly. Bart thought he had never moved so slowly in his life. The second floor forked in two directions, left and right.

“This way,” Cassie instructed.

“Right,” Bart agreed, and he was going to follow her, he really was.

“Bart?” A voice whispered over Bart’s earpiece. It came with the familiar tinkering tune of a nursery rhyme.

“Ms. Gordon?” It didn’t sound like Ms. Gordon. The voice that whispered his name was younger, higher, it shook with fear.

“Bart, help us.”

Bart watched Cassie walk towards the first door on her right, not noticing if her partner was behind her or not, then he heard something behind him. He turned to the door at the end of the hallway on the left as it creaked open.

“Bart,” the voice in his ear moved along with Greta Hayes’ lips, as she lay on the floor in the open doorway, staring at him. The door opened wider, and so did Bart’s eyes. She was missing both of her legs. Torn off like the wings off a fly by a particularly cruel child, leaving her torso a bloody stump. “Help.”

Then she screamed as something yanked her deeper into the room. Bart didn’t need to think before he was running after her.

“Bart!” Cassie cried after him, finally noticing that he was distracted, but Bart kept running until he was in the room where Greta was supposed to be. The door slammed shut behind him. He hesitated for only a split second before he scanned the room. There was a bloody smear on the floor, but otherwise no trace of the missing girl.

“Greta?”

The room was empty. Bart turned around.

“Cassie?” Bart called.

Cassie was pounding on the other side of the door while he jiggled the doorknob. But it was stuck.

“Bart?” A dozen or so voices whispered in Bart’s earpiece at once. He froze. There was a crinkling sound behind him. Like paper being carelessly unfolded. He turned.

The walls were covered with missing posters in red and white. All kids he recognized. Kids who weren’t missing (as far as he knew). Cissie King-Jones, Mia Dearden, Jaime Reyes, Virgil Hawkins, Megan Morse, Zachary Zatara, the walls were covered completely. But it was the papers stained red that really left a bad taste in his mouth. Because the red papers were the ones with Greta Hayes and Eddie Bloomberg’s pictures on them. The two kids that had gone missing that summer (as far as he knew). But there were three red papers on the wall. Bart really didn’t want to look at the third but trapped in the room with the papers there was nothing else to do.

There was a part of him that knew to expect to see his own face grinning back at him. His breathing tried to speed up, but it kept catching in his throat, forcing him to choke. He was trembling so badly, he was vibrating. Because he wasn’t missing, he was right there. He knew where he was, he was looking for It with his friends.

“And where are your friends now?”

Bart spun around. He barely had time to see the big yellow eyes and the awful wide grin. And in his ears he heard the voices of kids he knew screaming at him: “Bart! Help us! Bart! Come float with us!” All speaking over each other and making his head hurt. And then it all vanished in the same instant. It took him another split second to realize there wasn’t a floor under his feet. The second after that, a horrible pain struck his leg like lightning. Then there was darkness.

There was a loud crashing sound when Bart fell.

The door came unlocked for Cassie to fling it open, and she saw the hole in the floor. The paper on the wall crumpled in on themselves and blackened, lit by an invisible flame and no longer needed. Cassie didn’t have time to see what they said, she ran to the mouth of the hole to look down.

“Bart!” She cried.

He was collapsed in the kitchen, Cassie wanted to gag at the sight of him. Instead, she turned around and started running back to the stairs.

“What was that?” Conner asked, grabbing Tim’s shoulder to stop him.

“I heard it too,” Tim agreed.

Cassie raced past them before they could even consider where the sound was coming from.

“Cassie?” Conner asked.

“Where’s Bart?” Tim asked.

“Where’s the kitchen?” Cassie asked, folding halfway over to take a second to catch her breath.

Tim and Conner hadn’t found that room yet.

The darkness only lasted for a couple of minutes, before Bart opened his eyes again. But he wished he hadn’t when the pain from his leg struck the rest of him, leaving him screaming. He dared to look down through wet eyes to see what was causing him so much pain. He had fallen directly on top of the kitchen table. but somehow, he had fallen directly on top of the kitchen table wrong. And when he looked down, he saw the splintered leg stabbing directly through his kneecap. And he screamed louder.

And somehow, over all his screaming, he heard the tinkering of a music box. He looked to the side, and he could do nothing but watch as the door to the refrigerator peeled itself open. That horribly familiar hand came out first, pushing the door open, and Bart was helpless to do anything but watch, the hand was followed by two arms and two legs dressed in a worn purple suit that didn’t quite fit right twisting unnaturally like Bart’s own knee. Bart screamed as loudly as he could as he watched the refrigerator open and It come tumbling out, contorting in impossible ways, twisting entire segments of Its body until it was all sorted out. Then It took a long stride forward. Bart dragged himself across the floor, the metal table leg screeching behind him as he pulled himself towards the corner furthest from the refrigerator. But it was no use, because It followed him, approaching with long, patient legs while Bart could only fail to crawl. It leaned right above him, grinning.

“Time to float,” It said.

Bart shrieked in horror as he looked directly into that pale face, he saw the big eyes and the big teeth and an unfamiliar scar on the side of the thing’s head which he didn’t have too much time to think about. Because then It opened Its mouth, unhinging Its mouth and showing off all Its teeth. And It laughed.

Bart screamed. Half because of the pain, half because of the fear. No. Mostly because of the fear.

“Bart!” The door flew open.

It twisted to face the brave little children, standing in the doorway with only a single knife between the three of them.

Bart fell backwards in relief when it stood upright and turned away from him, towards his friends. Either not realizing or caring that they were now in danger. It took a step forwards while their knees shook.

“I’m not scared of you,” Tim warned, he held his knife out in front of him as bravely as he could.

“You aren’t scared of me?” It asked hysterically. It laughed at the young boy’s display. “Jason was.”

And that was all it took to collapse Tim’s resolve, when It lunged, rows of teeth still showing, he flinched, dropping the knife to the ground with a clatter.

Cassie moved at the same time, wielding a pointed rod laying conveniently by the doorway. She stabbed directly through Its eye, spurting blood out both ends, and the blood began to float. Lifting upwards instead of pouring down. Its face contorted into something no longer even pretending to be human. None of them were quite sure what It was really supposed to be, but Its clown-like skin shed like a snake, revealing bits and pieces of the true eldritch form beneath. For a moment, all was still, except for the heaving, sobbing breaths Bart was taking. Then It twitched, and the terror took hold again. Cassie released her end of the rod, and It began to move, slowly, It twisted.

“Get Bart,” Tim ordered.

No one moved at the command, frozen, entranced by the horror twisting and twitching before them.

“Get Bart!” Tim ordered again, this time pushing his friends to move.

They all ducked around behind It as It still twitched, regaining It’s bearings. By the time they had reached Bart’s side, It was standing upright. They screamed when It turned to them with Its monstrous new face. It took a false step towards the kids, all crouching and cowering over their injured friend, just to laugh when they all screamed and shrunk away. Then it stepped back, making a quarter of a bowing motion before It took Its exit.

“Don’t let it get away,” Tim changed his command. Standing up while the rest of them still screamed.

“We need to get out of here!” Cassie said.

But he followed almost absently, as if in a trance. He followed It, just barely down a staircase he had somehow missed before. And he saw the well. Old and dusty and rotten. He watched It, wounded but grinning as It descended. And he almost made a move to follow.

“Tim!” Bart sobbed loudly from upstairs.

Tim turned, glancing back one last time at the well before going to rejoin his friends. They would try again later. Together. After they were sure Bart was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the second chapter where I watched the movie clip multiple times trying to block this scene. Action scenes are even worse than the horror scenes, I hate them so much. Anyways, Bart's having a great time, and I hope all of the readers are too.


	23. What it Takes

Hal Jordan persuaded Bart’s grandparents to give the kids a minute to themselves in Bart’s hospital room once his leg was set. They needed to talk to the doctors about the replacement artificial knee he would need anyways, if he ever wanted to run again, which he most certainly did. So, Hal Jordan gave the kids a tight-lipped ghost of a smile and nodded to the room while Barry and Iris spoke to the doctors. The kids didn’t have to be told twice, they scrambled towards Bart’s room and were huddled around his bed in an instant.

“Hey Bart,” Cassie greeted somewhat awkwardly. They were all awkward, and staring at the blanket covering his knee, all silently wondering what it looked like under all those bandages but none of them wanting to ask. Even Bart was transfixed on his own leg, or maybe he was just zoning out, the doctors must have given him a whole cocktail of painkillers.

“Bart?” Conner called when he didn’t answer Cassie, “are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Bart whispered back, sounding distant and confused. “My fucking knee is gone, no, I am not okay.”

“Right, stupid question,” Conner said.

“You’re pretty stupid,” Bart announced.

Conner faltered, his jaw dropped open. “Excuse me?”

“I said you’re pretty stupid,” Bart repeated, “all of you, you’re all stupid.”

“Hey,” Tim called, but he didn’t really have any argument to tack on to it.

“Stupid,” Bart echoed, “you’re stupid, and so am I for letting you convince me that this was going to be fun.”

“No one ever tried to tell you that this was going to be fun,” Tim said.

“It was implied,” Bart said.

“Only by you,” Tim pointed out.

“You could have warned me that I was wrong.”

“We tried, you never listened. “

“Well you could have tried harder, I didn’t think anyone was actually going to get hurt, least of all me,” Bart spat, and he turned his head as best he could, so he didn’t have to look at Tim anymore.

“Bart, I know you’re hurt, and you’re scared, but this won’t happen again, we’ll be better prepared next time, I saw the well, we know where It is,” Tim said.

“No,” Bart said. “No next time. I’m not going back there.”

“What do you mean?” Tim asked.

“You know exactly what I mean, I’m not going back, I quit,” Bart decided.

“But you can’t quit,” Conner said.

“What part of, you’re stupid don’t you get? You don’t understand anything, I can quit whenever I want to, Ms. Gordon said so over and over, so I quit, the rest of you can run off and get yourselves killed if you want to, but I’m staying right here, far away from that house,” Bart said. And he knew exactly what insecurity he was manipulating to make Conner back off, but he didn’t care.

“What about when someone else goes missing?” Conner pressed on.

“What about when someone else goes missing?” Bart asked. “This isn’t about anyone else, this is about me, I got hurt, I could have died, and I am not going to put myself in that position again.”

“You’re a coward,” Tim accused.

“No, I’m smart, and you’re stupid,” Bart corrected, “and you’re going to get yourself killed, just like your brother, because he’s dead too.”

Cassie grabbed Tim before he could jump.

“Tim! Don’t! He’s already hurt,” she reasoned.

“Take it back, Jason isn’t dead,” Tim said.

“He is, we all think so, Conner and Cassie too, they just don’t want to hurt your stupid feelings by saying so,” Bart said.

Cassie and Conner cast ashamed eyes to the floor. It was true. Tim didn’t notice as he wrestled in Cassie’s hold.

“You don’t know my brother, you don’t know anything about him!” Tim shouted.

“I know he’s dead at the bottom of that well,” Bart said.

“I said take it back,” Tim demanded.

“Bart,” Cassie interrupted Tim’s outburst as patiently as she could, “you can’t seriously want to abandon the team, not when we’re this close.”

“Close? Close to what? Our deaths?” Bart asked.

“So, what if it is?” Conner wondered, “I would rather die trying to protect the people I care about than live cowering at home doing nothing.”

“We can’t do anything, you stupid motherfuck!” Bart accused.

“We hurt It,” Cassie said, “that’s something.”

“Yeah, you stabbed right through It’s fucking head and guess what it did? Nothing! It’s still alive, if skewering It’s head didn’t kill It, what else is there to try?” Bart asked.

“There’s still silver,” Cassie suggested.

“Right? With the knife that Tim dropped? Don’t think I didn’t notice that shit!” Bart cried.

“We still can’t give up,” Cassie insisted.

“Why not?” Bart asked, “wait, better question, why do you care?”

“Kids are going missing, how can I not care,” Cassie said.

“But you’re an outsider,” Bart reminded. “You don’t belong here, you’re only here for the summer, the kids going missing, they aren’t your friends or neighbours, they’re strangers, you say that I’m the only one here because I thought it would be fun? But why are you here, Cassie? You have no right to any of Watchtower County’s affairs, you don’t care what happens to our town, you shouldn’t be involved in any of this.”

“I’m doing what’s right,” Cassie said.

“And I’m doing what’s right for me,” Bart said.

“We were together when we hurt It,” Conner pointed out, “the only chance we have at defeating It is if we do it together, all of us, we’re a part of something, Bart, I know you feel it too, but we’re all in this together, whether you like it or not, and if we aren’t together, we’re going to fail.”

“Then I guess we failed, good try everybody, time to call it a day and stay inside for the rest of Summer,” Bart said.

“Don’t you even care about anyone but yourself?” Tim asked, “if we don’t kill It ourselves, it might never stop terrorizing this town, kids might never stop going missing, It might come after one of us.”

“It already came after us, and we all got lucky, I’m not going to test my luck again,” Bart said.

“So, what are you going to do?” Tim asked.

“I’ll take your advice, never be alone, I’ll stay with my Gramma or Grampa or Wally, and then I’ll grow up, and I’ll move far away, and none of this will be my problem anymore,” Bart said.

“You’re a coward,” Tim spat.

“So, what? I’d rather be a coward than crazy.”

Tim punched him that time.

“Tim!” Cassie gasped in horror. 

Bart’s nose was bleeding, he raised a tentative hand to feel the warm red blood. He looked up at the boy half-an-hour ago he would have called a friend, an ally. Tim looked down shocked at his own hand, then he steeled his expression, turned on his heel and left. Bart pressed the heel of his hand against his nose.

“I’ll get him,” Conner offered, leaving Cassie to tell Bart it was all okay. Even though it really wasn’t.

“Are you going to say you’re sorry?” Cassie asked, handing him a box of tissues.

“For what? Quitting?” Bart asked, he tilted his head back.

“For any of it,” Cassie said.

“Like calling Conner stupid, and you an outsider, and Tim crazy?” Bart suggested.

“That would be a start,” Cassie agreed.

“But I’m not sorry, I’m right,” Bart said.

Cassie clenched her fists, then she folded her arms close around herself. “Then goodbye, Bart, I hope you get better soon.”

And she left the room too.

Outside in the waiting room, Dick Grayson was waiting for them. He was the one who had picked them up from the house on Coast Street, having raced over the moment their tech had cut out and pulled over just as the kids were running out. Which felt wrong, because the whole ordeal felt like it took so much longer and more drawn out than the ten-minute drive from the library to the house would have taken him.

“I was just telling Tim and Conner, I had the hospital call Diana,” Grayson told Cassie when she joined them.

“Oh, did she sound mad?” Cassie asked.

Grayson shrugged, passive aggressive because he was mad. “You’ll have to wait until she gets here.”

“Just be grateful you aren’t on strike two,” Conner said.

“Strike two?” Tim tried to sound humoured when he laughed, but really just sounded tired. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve missed curfew this summer? I must be on strike fifty-two by now.”

“Yeah but strike two with Lois is worse than fifty-two with your family,” Conner said. And on cue, the door to the waiting room flew open. Lois Lane stood absolutely livid and terrifying.

“Conner Kent,” Lane said. 

“Hi mom,” Conner said, shrinking back as far as he could as she came closer to grab him, quickly checking him over for injuries.

“Do you have any idea what just happened?” Lane asked, she didn’t wait for him to answer. “I just got a call at work, which I had to leave to come down here, from the hospital telling me that you and your friends thought it would be a good idea to play in the house on Coast Street, and now, that Bart friend of yours is seriously hurt. What do you have to say for yourself? Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

“I’m sorry.”

Conner was the biggest of the kids. Taller than Cassie by several inches, even taller than that by Tim. He was going to grow up tall and strong like his father, even as young as he was, it was easy to tell that. So, it was strange to see how impossibly small he looked before his mother.

“No, I’m sorry isn’t going to cut it this time, what were you thinking, no, I’ll tell you what you were thinking, because you weren’t thinking, because if you were thinking, you would know what a stupid idea this was,” Lane said.

“I’m not…” he whispered, but his voice died out before he could commit to the statement.

“What was that? Speak up,” Lane ordered.

“I’m not stupid,” Conner whispered.

Lane softened at that, carding a gentle hand through her son’s hair. “Honey, I’m not saying that you are, I’m just saying that you’ve done a very stupid thing, and I don’t want to see you get hurt because of it.”

“Ms. Lane—”

Lane hardened again when Tim quietly spoke. She stood up, holding her son’s wrist in her hand. “No. I gave you the benefit of the doubt because you were Bruce’s boy, and I know Bruce, but you’re just as bad an influence as the Allen boy, convincing Conner to not come home, to go to dangerous places, I don’t want you anywhere near my son ever again, do you understand me?”

“Hey now.” Grayson lay a defensive hand over Tim’s shoulder.

“Tim didn’t—”

“Not a word from you, I said stay far away from my son, and I meant both of you, I may not know you, but you’re wrapped up in this as well, little monsters, the lot of you,” Lane accused.

“Mom, stop,” Conner quietly pleaded, “they’re my friends.”

“Not anymore they aren’t, friends don’t put their friends in danger,” Lane said.

“We didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” Conner said.

“Just be glad that it wasn’t you, you’re in enough trouble as it is,” Lane announced, “you’re so grounded you aren’t going to leave your room for the rest of the summer, much less the house to get in any more trouble than you already are, and when Clark hears about this? Well, we’re going to have a long talk, and you aren’t going to hide in your room to avoid it, we might let that slide once, but you aren’t going to get away with that again.”

“Mom, please,” Conner said.

“No, you’re in more trouble than you can possibly imagine right now,” Lane said.

“But my friends—”

“Are not your problem anymore, we’re going home.”

Conner cast a glance over his shoulder as Tim and Cassie could do nothing but watch him trail after his mother.

“You kids aren’t monsters,” Grayson said, meaning it as a comfort. Neither of the kids replied

They sat in silence until Ms. Prince arrived not long after. She stood in front of Cassie, who looked down, so she didn’t have to look her in the eye.

“Cassandra,” Ms. Prince greeted.

“Diana,” Cassie returned the greeting.

“Have you done what you were so convinced you needed to do?” Ms. Prince asked, she sounded patient, but Cassie still didn’t look up. Just in case.

“No,” she replied.

“Would you like me to call your mother to take you home to Gateway?” Ms. Prince asked.

A week ago, that was all Cassie could have asked for, she looked up in surprise. And then she shrunk back under cold, displeased eyes. “No,” Cassie decided.

“Should I call your mother?” Ms. Prince asked.

“No,” Cassie replied.

“Are you going to try this again?” Ms. Prince asked

Cassie glanced to Tim, who kept his face as blank as he could. Trying to let her know that he wouldn’t blame her if she abandoned him too. But it didn’t come across. In just a week, Cassie had gotten to know him well enough to know what it looked like when he was desperate. Desperate for any validation or support she could offer him.

“Yes,” she replied.

Ms. Prince nodded, and she scowled, but she didn’t lash out. “Let’s go home, we’ll discuss punishment later.”

“Okay, Tim, call me?” Cassie suggested.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Tim agreed.

Ms. Prince’s scowl deepened, but she led Cassie out of the hospital and back to her house without another word.

Dick and Tim sat in silence for a moment longer before Dick stood up.

“Tim? Let’s go home, dad’s going to want a turn at grounding his kid too,” he said, Tim thought he might have been trying to be funny, but he missed the mark fairly horrendously.

“Okay,” Tim agreed. He slunk off the chair and followed, feeling splintered, alone, and with less hope than he’d felt in three years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bart might have seemed a little out of character this chapter, but keep in mind that this would closer align with early-Impulse Bart Allen rather than late-Impulse Bart Allen, he hasn't gone through his big depression or anything and is still the fairly apathetic character with a skewed sense of danger he was in the beginning. Although I was thinking of the part in the Young Justice comics where his scout gets killed and he gets spooked so badly he quits the hero gig for a while, I do remember that he had a lot of other things going on that contributed to that, but once again, I ask you to keep in mind that this is pre-depression Bart. Sorry, I felt like I had to justify Bart's behaviour, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyways.


	24. You Die if You Try

July turned to August, and Tim and Cassie were all that was left of the team. They tried to call Conner every time they went out, but Lane or Kent refused to pass on the message. They never even bothered trying to contact Bart, he was at home, exactly where he wanted to be. They had both been grounded, of course, but it didn’t stick, Ms. Prince quickly let Cassie return to the library, and Tim snuck out against Wayne’s will behind his back. It was just the two of them, and they never dared going to the house of Coast Street again, not without the whole team, not without being fully prepared. Most of their get-togethers involved going to the library, where they would study under Gordon’s mostly watchful eye. She would sometimes get distracted depending on whether or not officer Grayson decided to tag along, then she would let herself get halfway distracted by his charms. Sometimes, Gordon would send them to interview someone else who had mentioned seeing something strange, usually many years ago. Sometimes Tim and Cassie suspected that it was partially to get them out of the way, for a one-on-one talk with Grayson. Cassie didn’t know how there was so much reading Gordon needed them to go through before they could try again. But even Gordon’s extensive study regimen was starting to run out of material to study. Soon enough, there would be nothing left for the pair to do but try again.

The first of August was scheduled to be a usual meeting at the library. Just the two of them and Gordon. It was raining that morning, the first summer rain in three summers. It wasn’t raining hard, really just drizzling, but there was a chance that it could get worse. Tim hated the rain. He took a grey raincoat out of the hall closet without even thinking about it until he had it zipped up to his chin and he heard a clattering behind him.

Wayne had dropped the tablet he used for work at the sight of his son, standing in the doorway with his back to his father wearing that grey raincoat, ready to walk away into the rain. He spun around when the screen shattered. It took a second for it to click in Wayne’s head that the son standing before him was Tim.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Wayne asked.

“The library,” Tim replied.

Wayne stared at him for a moment longer, and Tim knew exactly who he was seeing. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, standing awkwardly.

“No,” Wayne decided.

“What?” Tim asked.

“You aren’t going, it’s raining out,” Wayne said.

“It’s barely raining, it’s probably going to let up soon,” Tim observed.

“I don’t care, take that raincoat off and go upstairs right now,” Wayne ordered.

“Dad, I can’t, I told Cassie and Barbara I would be at the library,” Tim said.

“So, you’ll call the library, tell her you can’t make it,” Wayne said.

“Dad, I have to go,” Tim insisted.

“No, you have to obey your father and go upstairs,” Wayne said.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

“That isn’t a real reason.”

“I am your father, and I’m telling you to go upstairs!”

“But you won’t tell me why, so I’m not listening to you.” Tim pulled up the hood of his raincoat as if that would end the conversation.

“Timothy!” Wayne grabbed his son’s shoulder when he tried to open the door. He pulled the boy back to him with a little too much force, trying to spin him around to face him, but Tim lost his balance and ended up pushed to the floor at his father’s feet. He hissed with pain when glass from the shattered tablet embedded in his palm, leaving a thin trail of blood running along his hand. Wayne stared down at him without pity. “I’ve let this go on long enough, skipping curfew, sneaking out, breaking and entering, getting yourself and your friends hurt do you have any idea what people say about you?”

“I don’t care,” Tim said. He began to pick at the glass in his hand, wincing as it slowly came out. Crying out in pain when Wayne grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him to ensure his son was looking at him, and slicing Tim’s hand further when he messed up his extraction.

“Look at me,” Wayne ordered.

“I am,” Tim spat.

“They say you want to go missing, that you’re waiting for it, that you’re going to end up dead in a sewer like Jason, is that what you want?” Wayne asked, his voice cracking over the mention of his late son.

“Jason isn’t dead,” Tim hissed.

“I said, is that what you want?” Wayne repeated, shaking his son again as if that would help the question settle.

“No!” Tim cried.

“Then stop acting like it,” Bruce dropped his son, letting Tim fall back on the shards of tablet, Tim grit his teeth to keep from wincing at the new scrapes. “You aren’t going out in the rain, not today.”

“Bruce.”

The father and son hadn’t realized they had an audience. Ms. Kyle stood in the doorway to the kitchen, Damian and Cass stood at the top of the staircase, but the children scattered when Wayne looked up. Although he did notice that they Cass ducked into Tim’s room rather than her own, most likely to wait for him. Knowing he would need her silent support. But Ms. Kyle stayed at the bottom of the stairs.

“Don’t get mad at him,” Ms. Kyle ordered, swiftly approaching to help her step-son back to his feet.

“No, Selina, we’ve let him get away with this for too long, I draw the line here, he shouldn’t be allowed to just run around wherever he wants without our permission, he’s going to get himself hurt,” Wayne spat.

“I’m not saying that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants, I’m just telling you not to get mad at him, he’s a kid, it’s summer, he just wants to have fun with his friends,” Ms. Kyle said.

“He wants to go missing is what he wants,” Wayne growled.

“He’s just a kid,” Ms. Kyle insisted.

“No, I won’t have you convincing me to let another one of my sons go out in the rain and disappear just like you did with Jason,” Wayne accused.

Ms. Kyle straightened her spine, blinking with surprise. “What did you just say?”

“Don’t think that I just forgot about all of that, Jason asked you for permission to go out that day, not me, you convinced me to let him go,” Wayne said.

“Are you saying that it’s my fault he’s gone?” Ms. Kyle asked.

“You certainly didn’t help,” Wayne spat.

Ms. Kyle pushed Tim gently towards the stairs. “Tim, listen to your father, go upstairs.” Her voice was clipped.

“Selina, he doesn’t mean it, this is my fault, I’m sorry,” Tim said.

“I said go upstairs,” Selina ordered. Tim hesitated, then he obeyed, abandoning his raincoat halfway up the staircase.

He glanced in both directions. Cass would be waiting in his room, ready to help, whether he wanted her to or not. He didn’t want her to. He just wanted to be alone. So, he opened the door to the one room he knew no one would follow him into. Leaving the door open just a crack so that he could watch the scene downstairs continue to unfold without him.

Selina had opened the hall closet herself. Producing a stylish black raincoat.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Wayne asked.

“Out,” Ms. Kyle replied, her tone cold and her words directly to the point.

“Where will you go?” Wayne asked.

“Pam’s probably,” Ms. Kyle replied.

“For how long?” Wayne asked.

“Until you can get your head out of your ass,” Ms. Kyle spat. She popped the collar of her raincoat as a sort of barrier between her husband and herself.

“Selina,” Wayne moved to grab her hand when she reached for the door knob, but she snapped around and pointed a manicured finger right in his face.

“Don’t touch me,” she warned. “You really think I don’t remember that it was my call to let Jason go? I remember, and it’s been driving me crazy for three years, I don’t need you to remind me of that, but you had the final decision, if you had said no, he wouldn’t have gone, he was your son first, you could have made that call, but you didn’t, so don’t you dare try to put this all on my shoulders, don’t pretend that I didn’t lose a son too.”

Wayne scowled, but said nothing as Ms. Kyle slammed the door behind her.

Tim closed the door softly. Every breath was strangling him. Coming fast before catching in his throat, his cheeks and eyes felt hot. It was all falling apart, just like he always knew it would. All because Jason wasn’t there.

Jason.

Tim suddenly remembered where he had hidden.

He turned slowly, prepared to see his older brother’s room, covered in dust because even Alfred didn’t have the nerve to enter the hallowed space.

He was greeted instead by a big smile and yellow eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the home stretch now, it won't be too much longer before everything's over. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	25. IT Has Him

Cass waited a long time before she knocked on the door her brother was hiding behind twice. It was at least an hour of staring at the door, waiting for him to come out. He would shuffle into his own room, collapse on the bed, and confess everything that was upsetting him. Usually, he would have come to her by now. She was beginning to get impatient. But he had to come talk to her eventually, he always came and talked to her when he was upset. So, she knocked on the door.

“Tim?” She called through the door.

There was no reply.

She opened the door. Slowly, in case Tim was sitting with his back against it. The room was empty. The window was closed and locked from the inside, so he couldn’t have snuck out. There were a pair of markings in the dusty floor where Tim’s feet had recently stood, but no sign he had gone any further, she took a step into the room anyways. It was empty. Undisturbed.

Until she looked up.

Sloppy, large deep red letters stained the ceiling.

 

_YOU DIE IF YOU TRY_

 

The letters warned. Cass stared straight up for a moment. Then the fresh red dripped from the ceiling, falling warm against her cheek. The feeling suddenly returned her to reality. Her brother wasn’t where he was supposed to be. There was a threatening message on the ceiling.

Cass ran from the room towards her father’s study, where he had been sulking for the past hour.

“What’s going on?” Damian asked when she ran past his door. Her footsteps were louder, heavier, and more frightened than he had ever heard her before.

Cass paused, Damian stared at her in his open doorway. She could see his fear clear all over his face infecting every muscle and bone in his body, she pointed at the open door to Jason’s room. “Don’t,” she warned, then she was running for Wayne’s study again.

Of course, never one to follow rules, Damian went to the room anyways. He stood frozen in the doorway while the red dripped down from the ceiling slowly. He knew exactly what those words meant. They meant Icarus had flown too close to the sun. They meant there was nothing to be done to save him. They meant that he had lost another brother to It.

He would kill It, he internally swore. It had the nerve to take from his family not once but twice, and he would kill It for that. Except he was too weak to even keep himself standing, he collapsed to the floor when his knees shook so badly they couldn’t support him anymore. And he knew to try to avenge his brother could only result in him ending up just like both of them. The warning was right above him after all. You die if you try. So, he curled in on himself until he was very small, and he let tears flood from his eyes across his cheeks and nose in silence. His brother was gone.

Cass didn’t bother knocking on the door to Wayne’s study. The matter at hand was too important. But it also wasn’t the time to be throwing herself off and disturbing her own patterns, she decided quickly that it annoyed her that she didn’t, and so, barely even recognizing that she was doing it, she knocked twice on the already open door as she spoke. “Tim is gone,” she reported.

Wayne was on his feet in an instant. “I told him he wasn’t allowed to go out.”

“No,” Cass said, “not out, gone, taken.”

Wayne froze.

“Didn’t see him leave, window locked, don’t know how, but gone.” Cass scrunched her brow in frustration, her worried, frantic mind was making it hard to find the words to explain that something had taken her brother away. “Message,” she recalled, “on ceiling.”

“Show me,” Wayne ordered. He followed his daughter along the much too short path to Jason’s open door, where he faltered. His youngest was on his knees, sobbing, Wayne crouched next to him. “Damian? What’s wrong?”

“Father!” Damian simply wailed before letting himself collapse into his father’s arms. Wayne hushed him gently, then Cass tapped him on the shoulder. She pointed up. And he saw the words. Damian could tell from the way he stiffened around his small son. Which just made everything so much worse. Because if he could see the words, that meant the blood was real, not one of Its illusions.

“I need to make a phone call,” Wayne abruptly decided, standing and leaving his children at a loss in front of the open door.

Cass took over, wrapping her arms around her little brother. “It will be okay, he will find him.”

But it wasn’t okay. It had Tim.

Pamela Isley had poured Ms. Kyle a glass of wine and was patiently listening to her friend complain about her husband when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Pamela is Selina there?”

Dr. Isley rolled her eyes at the voice over the phone, she covered the receiver and turned to Selina. “It’s Bruce,” she said.

Selina groaned, but stood up, wine glass still in hand. “This had better be an apology,” she grumbled as she reached out to take the phone.

“I don’t see why you don’t just leave him,” Dr. Isley said, handing over the phone and raising her own glass of wine.

“Because I’m stupid I guess,” Selina replied before raising the phone to her ear. “What do you want, Bruce?”

“Selina, please tell me Tim’s with you.”

“What? Why would he be with me?” Ms. Kyle asked.

“Because he was upset you left and wanted to convince you to come back? Because you lost your mind and took him with you to make me upset? I don’t know, just tell me you have him.”

“He isn’t here, Bruce what is all this about?” Ms. Kyle asked. But she knew exactly what it was all about.

“Tim is gone.”

Selina kept her voice steady while her hands shook. “What do you mean Tim is gone? Where did he go?”

“I don’t know, I was hoping he might have followed you, or you took him with you, or something.”

“He isn’t with me, so where the fuck is he? I’ve only been gone for ten minutes and you lose our fucking son what is wrong with you?” Ms. Kyle demanded.

“Selina, I’m sorry, I know, I was stupid, and now Tim is gone, and you can be as mad at me as you want later, just help me find Tim first.”

“Of course.” She hated when he was right when she was mad at him. “What can I do, have you called the police yet?”

“I thought I should call you first.”

“What about Dick? He might have gone there,” Ms. Kyle suggested.

“Dick’s working today, and somehow I doubt it anyways.”

“Why?” Wayne was silent on the other end. “Bruce, there’s something you aren’t telling me, why don’t you think Tim went to Dick?”

“I didn’t really think he was with you, but I hoped that I was wrong.”

“Why? Bruce, tell me what’s going on,” Ms. Kyle ordered.

“There’s a message on the ceiling. It looks like it was written in blood. And Tim is gone. I don’t think he just left, someone took him.”

Selina’s wine glass shattered on the floor. Dr. Isley didn’t comment, since her friend was clearly distraught. She didn’t even care when the red wine puddled around her feet. “Who would take Tim? Where would they take him?”

“I don’t know, I hoped it was you.”

“You thought I would kidnap my own damn kid and leave a message in his blood on the ceiling?” Selina demanded.

“No, I hoped it was you because I know you would never hurt him!”

“I’m not a sociopath, Bruce, how dare you even accuse me of that?” Ms. Kyle cried.

“I know, I’m sorry, be mad later, right now, we need to focus on finding Tim, if he isn’t with you, that means he’s in danger.”

Or dead, more likely. But neither of them dared to say that.

“Okay,” Ms. Kyle agreed, “I’m on my way, call the police.”

“Thank you.”

Ms. Kyle hung up, and for a moment she just stared at the phone.

“Selina?” Dr. Isley called after a couple of minutes and Selina still didn’t move. “Are you okay.”

“Tim is gone,” Ms. Kyle raised a hand to scrub at her wet eyes, not caring when she smudged her makeup.

“He’ll be okay,” Dr. Isley soothed.

She doubted it. “He’s been kidnapped, Pam! There’s a message and everything! This is all my fault, it’s, because I couldn’t handle the fact that it’s my fault Jason is gone, and now Tim is gone too.”

“Hey, Bruce is just as much to blame, he’s the one who was being an ass, remember?” Dr. Isley said.

“But I’m the one who let Jason go out, and I’m the one who left, and now my boys are gone,” Ms. Kyle sobbed.

“Hey.” And Dr. Isley smacked Ms. Kyle hard to stop the tears, if only for a moment. Isley was a wonderful companion when it came to complaining about other people, she was unafraid to voice her opinions, and it was easy to get on her nerves, but she was far from a welcome ear to self-pity. “Get it together. You’re no use to anyone crying, it is not your fault your husband couldn’t watch his kids without your help, but if he couldn’t keep the brat in your house, what makes you think he can get him back? Get home, and find your kid, we both know Bruce won’t be able to do it by himself.”

“We never found Jason, what if we never find Tim either?” Ms. Kyle asked.

“You’ll never find him if you don’t look.”

Ms. Kyle took a deep breath to sort out her nerves. “Pam, can you take me home? I can’t drive like this.”

“Of course.”

“Officer Grayson!” Commissioner Gordon called, he nodded his subordinate into his office.

Grayson laughed at one last joke before saying goodbye to the co-worker he had been chatting with and followed the commissioner into his office.

“What can I help you with today, sir?” Grayson asked.

Commissioner Gordon stared ahead, humourless and grim. Grayson let his own grin fade.

“Grayson, I want you to go home, take the rest of the day off,” Commissioner Gordon advised.

“Why?” Grayson asked.

“We just now received a call from your father.” Commissioner Gordon glanced up to see Dick staring straight back at him. He saw fear in the young police officer’s eyes. “He reported a potential kidnapping, potential homicide too, he said there was blood at the scene, spelling out the words you die if you try on the ceiling, I sent Montoya to check it out, but I thought you would want to go home, be with your family.”

“Commissioner, what happened?” Grayson asked. He understood that the commissioner just wanted to cushion the blow, give him all the facts before he had to hit him hard.

“It’s your brother, Tim, he’s missing.”

And just like that, it all fell apart.

“No,” Grayson said.

“I know, it’s hard, so I figured you would want to go home, mourn with the rest of your family,” commissioner Gordon suggested.

That snapped Grayson out of his trance immediately. “Mourn? My brother isn’t dead, he hasn’t even been missing for twenty-four hours, you can’t declare him dead already.”

“And we haven’t, we’ll do what we can, but you have to face the facts, this is Watchtower County, it’s summer, he’s a kid, the odds of him coming back are pretty low, and we don’t want to get your hopes up,” the commissioner explained.

“Tim is not dead,” Grayson insisted, “he can’t be dead, he’s my little brother.”

“I understand, and we’re doing everything we can, we’ll let you know if there are any updates, but you should go home, it sounded like your dad was having a pretty rough time with this, and I know you have other siblings, I’m sure they need you right about now,” the commissioner said.

Grayson opened his mouth to argue. Then he dug his nails into his palms and just nodded. “Thank you commissioner, I’ll go now.”

Outside the door, Grayson drove his fist against the nearest concrete, police department wall. His hand started to bleed. The rest of the department stared at him. He was usually so good at hiding his temper. But how could he stay calm when his brother was gone? When his brother was most likely dead? He collapsed to his knees and pressed his forehead against the cool wall, he punched the wall again, not quite so hard this time, but he accompanied it with a scream. His co-workers were whispering now, asking each other who should ask him what’s wrong, and Grayson just screamed and sobbed into the wall. He knew it was dangerous, he could have stopped him, he could have kept him safe, he could have done something, he knew It wanted him. And then he stopped. His knuckles a bloody pulp by now, Grayson let his arm collapse by his side. That was it.

It wanted him.

It had him.

And It had him alive.

It had to.

“Barbara?”

“Dick?” Gordon asked, recognizing the caller ID. “Where’s Tim? He was supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

“Barbara, It has Tim.”

Gordon froze, Cassie watched her with unsettled interest. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure? Barbara, my brother disappeared from a locked room and there are big bloody letters on the ceiling warning us not to look for him, if that wasn’t It, then I don’t know what it is, It has him, Its holding him hostage in Its sewer somewhere, and we need to get him back.”

“Okay, you need to calm down,” Gordon instructed.

“Calm down? Barbara, every second that we spend out here is another second that It has a chance to kill my brother, do you understand? My brother is gone, he could die, I can’t calm down!”

“Dick! Yelling at me won’t bring him back,” Gordon snapped.

“Then what will? Tell me where to go, I’m going to find him, I’m in the house on Coast Street, now where is this fucking well?”

“Tim said it was in the basement,” Gordon said.

“I’m in the fucking basement, there’s no well here, don’t screw around with me.”

“Dick, I would never joke about something like this, look, just get over here, I’ll send Cassie to find him,” Gordon said.

“All by herself? No, I’ll do this, I should have done this in the first place. How could you let him do this? Putting him in danger all by himself?”

“You think I wanted him to do this? Are you insane? I only ever sent him out there because we can’t do anything, Dick!” Gordon snapped. “Neither of us can do anything, if we could, don’t you think I would have done it by now? I’ve known about It for six years, if I could, I would have killed it myself, you can’t seriously think that sending your brother and a bunch of other random children to fight a clown monster in the sewers was my first choice, I wanted to do this myself too, but I can’t, and neither can you!”

“There has to be something we can do.”

“I’ve been trying to find something to do for six years, Dick, I never wanted to put Tim in danger any more than you did, but somebody had to do something, and it had to be him because no one else was stepping up, and with Tim in my corner, I could finally do something, I could prepare him as best I could to do what I still can’t, and I’m sorry, that he happened to be your brother, but I’m trying to do what I do and maybe send the one kid I have left on my team to save him, and you can either get over here and help me, or keep crying in a dusty basement, and you’ll never save your brother because It won’t let you,” Gordon said. Her eyes were warm, and her cheeks were wet as well, but Grayson didn’t need to know that. She heard him breathe slow and wet and heavy on the other end.

“I’m sorry, I’m scared, he’s my brother, my baby brother, and It has him, he could be dead by now.”

“No, we can’t afford to think like that.” Gordon wiped her eyes clean before she got back to business. “Get over here, I’ll send Cassie.”

“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay, don’t be scared, Dick, we’ll find Tim.”

“Okay.”

“What happened?” Cassie asked once the line went dead.

“You need to go back to Coast Street,” Gordon said.

Cassie squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “By myself?”

“It has Tim,” Gordon said.

Cassie could have predicted that from the half of the conversation she heard, but it wasn’t real until Barbara said those words. “I was only able to hurt It the first time because I had the team with me, I can’t do it without them,” Cassie confessed.

“You’re going to have to,” Gordon said, “I know, it’s scary, but Tim’s down there all by himself right now, and you’re the only one who can do anything about it, if you don’t, he’s going to die.”

“But it has to be all of us,” Cassie insisted, “I can’t kill It alone.”

“The Kents won’t let Conner go, and Bart quit for himself,” Gordon said.

“Call them anyways,” Cassie requested.

“We can’t force them to put themselves in danger, if they’re going to do this, they have to do it by choice, or we’ll just get them killed,” Gordon said.

“They will choose to help Tim,” Cassie said, “I don’t care how selfish Bart is, or if Conner’s parents are controlling, they’ll come for Tim.” Cassie rose to her feet with a determination. “Give me one of those ear thingies, I’m going to get my team back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the bright side, it can't get much worse than this? We are rapidly approaching the final encounter, I hope you're excited, I was just rereading the ending for this story and I can't wait to post it. We're almost there. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	26. Don't Ever Be Afraid

Bart was following him. Wherever Hal Jordan tried to go, Bart was following close on his heels. It had become almost commonplace. Bart was always with someone ever since his accident. But it felt wrong, Bart liked to play outside, and he never needed anyone’s permission to do it. Whatever had happened, the kid had been left spooked. Hal Jordan didn’t like it. Not at all.

“So,” Hal Jordan said when he woke up from his ten AM nap at one PM and Bart was sitting on the floor next to the couch, which is where he had been when Hal Jordan fell asleep. “Mind telling me what I did to earn a stalker today?”

“Grampa Barry and Gramma Iris are out of town, so I’m sticking with you,” Bart replied, absently running his fingers back and forth through the carpet.

“Right, and that explains what exactly?” Hal Jordan asked.

“Tim says don’t ever be alone, and I’ll be safe,” Bart explained.

“Tim, huh? What’s he been up to? You haven’t seen any of your friends since the day in the hospital,” Hal Jordan said.

Bart scowled, grabbing fistfuls of the carpet. “They’re stupid, I’m not friends with them anymore.”

“What? How come?” Hal Jordan asked.

“Because they want to get me killed,” Bart said.

“Oh, yeah, that would be pretty stupid,” Hal Jordan agreed.

“Yeah, so I don’t want to talk to them anymore, and they’re mad at me for not wanting to get killed, so they aren’t talking to me anymore, so we can’t be friends anymore,” Bart explained.

“Okay.” Hal Jordan nodded along. “What was it that your friends wanted you to do that was going to get you killed?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about it, grown-ups won’t get it,” Bart said.

“Bart, we both know that I am the least grown-up adult there is, spill, something’s been bugging you since the operation, spill,” Hal Jordan requested.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” Bart asked.

“Pinky swear.” Hal Jordan crossed his heart before linking his pinky with Bart’s.

And Bart confessed everything, even the parts that he had sworn to Conner never to tell. But he was mad at Conner, so he didn’t feel too badly about it. And Hal Jordan just listened with a strange, confused look on his face.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Hal Jordan requested. “There’s an evil clown monster that only kids can see that crawls out of the sewer during the summer every three years to eat the frightened children, and this year it wants to eat you and your friends, so your friends want to kill it?”

“Yeah, that’s about it,” Bart agreed.

“Oh, in that case, it’s easy, just stop being afraid and kill it,” Hal Jordan advised.

“But Grampa Hal, I can’t,” Bart said.

“Why not?”

“Because I just can’t.”

“Why not? You and your friends are the chosen ones or whatever, get it together and kill the sewer clown,” Hal Jordan said.

“But I can’t, we’re all going to die,” Bart said.

Hal Jordan laughed at the words. “You would not believe the number of times your Grampa has said that exact same thing to me, but let me tell you something, Bart, if he ever believed that, we wouldn’t be friends anymore, and I would probably be in an unmarked grave somewhere.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’ve heard it all, we’re going to die, I’m going to die, you’re going to die, I’ve been there, but I’m still here, aren’t I? And Barry’s still put up with me, and he knows I’m kind of an idiot and I get us in trouble a lot, but he’s stuck with me, because he trusts me, and he isn’t afraid that I’ll steer him wrong, because I’ve got him around to steer me right, but if he bailed on me any of the literally countless times I’ve fucked up, we wouldn’t be here right now, you know?” Hal Jordan explained.

“I haven’t known them for as long as you’ve known Grampa Barry,” Bart said.

“What does that matter? Did you know the first time I met Barry as adults I ended up gambling our lives? We ended up in a gladiator ring, I almost got us killed the first night we knew each other, and he stuck around for me,” Hal Jordan said.

“It’s different,” Bart insisted.

“Is it really? They’re your friends, aren’t they?” Hal Jordan asked.

“Sort of,” Bart agreed.

“So, what’s the problem? Trust that they won’t let you die, and if they’re really your friends, they won’t let you down,” Hal Jordan said.

“But what if they aren’t really my friends?” Bart asked.

“Bart, I’ve listened to you talk about every single person you’ve ever met since you were five in excruciating detail, and you’ve called them your friends, but I’ll be honest, I’ve never really felt like you meant it until these kids,” Hal Jordan confessed. “I know you trust them, because I know you.”

“But they were really mad at me, I abandoned them, I called them mean names, they hate me now,” Bart reminded.

“Bart, it isn’t like you to worry about stuff like this,” Hal Jordan said, “stop worrying about being alone, it sounds to me like the real trick to surviving this thing is to don’t ever be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Bart said.

“Then why aren’t you with your friends?”

There came a knock on the door.

“You get that, I’m gonna take my one-thirty nap,” Hal Jordan decided.

Bart gathered his crutches and made his way towards the door while Hal Jordan settled in, his job was done.

“Bart, I need your help,” Cassie said as soon as the door opened.

“Cassie? I actually wanted to talk to you—”

“Bart, It has Tim,” Cassie said.

Bart froze. “It what?”

“I know you’re mad at us, but It has Tim, he’s gone, It took him, we have to go back to Coast Street and save him,” Cassie said.

“You’re sure It has him? He isn’t just hiding somewhere like Conner was?” Bart suggested.

“I wouldn’t be asking you to help if I wasn’t sure,” Cassie said.

Bart looked down at himself before he said anything. “Cassie, I want to help, I really do, but look at me, I can’t fight It like this.”

“Bart, we need you, we have to be together, and I know you’re scared, but we have to do something, this isn’t about you anymore, or about something happening to someone else, this is about Tim, Tim is in danger,” Cassie said.

And that was a lot. Bart thought about what Hal Jordan had said about himself and Barry Allen and abandonment and unmarked graves and being afraid.

“I’m not afraid,” Bart decided.

“Are you sure?” Cassie asked.

Not really, but Cassie was his friend, and so was Tim, and he wasn’t about to let them down. “Yeah, what’s the plan?”

“First, we need to get Conner, then it’s back to the house on Coast Street,” Cassie decided.

“Where’s Conner?” Bart wondered.

“His parents have him under house arrest, come on, we’re on a tight schedule,” Cassie urged, leading Bart down the street as quickly as his crutches would carry him.

“Grampa Hal! I’m gonna go kill the clown in the sewers with my friends now!” Bart called behind him as he slammed the door behind him.

“Okay, have fun!”

And then he was hobbling after Cassie to Conner’s house.

Back at home, Conner’s summer had somehow gotten worse since the last time he was nearly murdered by a clown monster. He was finally allowed out of his room, but Lane and Kent had strict instructions to never let their son leave the house without strict supervision, meaning Conner could count the number of times he’d been outside since the incident on one hand, and it left him fairly miserable. He was most likely the first child to ever be banned from the library. Even Jon was wary around him. Like he was about to explode at any second, which Conner very much felt like he was. If he was lucky, he might catch Cassie leaving to meet up with Tim in the morning through the window, and they might share a melancholy wave, but for the most part, he was under lock down.

At the moment, Conner was watching Jon watch some kid’s show, feeling his brain melt slowly within his skull. Kent left the room to take a phone call a moment before, leaving Lane to watch the kids. He stepped back into the room. Conner watched, only half interested.

“Lois? Can we talk for a second?” Kent asked, nodding towards the kitchen. And that got Conner interested.

“Why can’t you talk to her here?” He asked.

“It’s adult business, Lois?” Kent nodded towards the kitchen again.

Lane rose to join him. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, it isn’t your problem.”

“If it isn’t my problem, why can’t you talk about it here?” Conner asked.

Kent gave Lane a very uncomfortable look, the kind of look that said what he wanted to talk to her about was absolutely not something their son should hear.

“What’s wrong?” Conner asked.

“We can talk about it later,” Lane said. Kent made a face that said that absolutely was not what she should have said.

“I want to talk about it now, why are you acting so weird?” Conner asked.

“There’s nothing for you to do about it, just wait here while I speak to your mother,” Kent said.

“If it doesn’t have anything to do with me, then why can’t you tell me about it?” At first, he just wanted to annoy his parents, ask them questions until they regretted forcing him to spend so much time with them. But the longer he dragged out his interrogation, the more uncomfortable his father visibly became. That couldn’t be a good sign. Conner didn’t like it.

“I didn’t say that,” Kent said.

“So, it is about me?”

“No.”

“Well? Which is it? Is it none of my business or isn’t it? Either way, you can talk about it in front of me,” Conner said.

“Kon,” Jon whispered, hoping to stop his brother from arguing with their parents again. He argued with them every day.

“No, I want to know,” Conner insisted.

“Conner, this is a grown-up matter, you wouldn’t understand,” Kent said.

“If I won’t understand, you can say it right now, I won’t ask you to explain,” Conner promised.

Kent decided he’d had enough, so he turned to his wife, and pretended their children weren’t present. “Lois, the kitchen.”

She followed with a tight-lipped smile to her sons. Conner prepared to follow them and press his ear against the door. But then there came the knocking.

“Someone’s at the door,” Jon quietly pointed out.

“Yeah, I hear it.” Conner cast a forlorn glance at the closed kitchen door before answering the front door, Jon trailed after him, because Conner wasn’t actually supposed to answer the door himself for the precise reason he was faced with. “Cassie?” He narrowed his eyes and scowled. “Bart.”

“Conner, we need to go,” Cassie instructed. Jon gasped quietly, Conner half turned around and Jon ran, not wanting to be caught spying on his brother.

“What’s he doing here?” Conner asked, nodding towards Bart.

“I was an asshole, I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for you to be mad at me, I’m back to help, so we need to go now,” Bart said.

“I can’t go, I’m grounded, my mom would kill me,” Conner reminded.

“You don’t have time to be grounded either, we have to go,” Bart said.

Conner frowned deeper. “Why do we have to go? What’s going on?”

“It’s Tim—” Cassie began.

“Conner!” Lane screeched with horror as if she had caught her son with a gun or cocaine rather than just standing in the doorway talking to his friends. Conner became small again when Lane violently pulled the boy away from the doorway, pushing him back into the house. 

“You kids should go home,” Kent advised, and he tried to look apologetic, but it was hard because he didn’t exactly want them anywhere near his kid.

“Don’t yell at mom and dad,” Jon softly pleaded, and he grabbed Conner’s hand, but Conner quickly pulled away, trying to weave past his parents. Jon must have told them who had been at the door, the little snitch.

“Wait, what were you saying about Tim?” Conner asked.

Lane and Kent shared a look, a shocked, frightened look, like they knew what Bart and Cassie had come to tell him. Kent grabbed his son by the shoulder and tried directing him back. “Conner get inside.”

“No,” Conner said, “what’s wrong? Where’s Tim?”

“Conner get inside,” Kent ordered again.

“It has Tim,” Cassie said. And the struggle in the doorway ceased.

“Tim?” Conner echoed. Cassie nodded.

“It took him, so we have to go save him right now,” Bart said, rocking impatiently on his crutches.

“You aren’t going anywhere, you’re still grounded, remember?” Lane reminded.

Conner turned on her. “Did you know about this?”

“I just got off the phone with Tim’s father,” Kent confessed.

And it all made sense. “And you weren’t going to tell me?”

“You didn’t need to know,” Kent reasoned.

“The fuck I didn’t, Tim is my best friend,” Conner exclaimed. Behind him, he heard Jon start to cry, but for once, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You only knew him for a week,” Kent pointed out.

“What difference does that make? He’s my best friend, and you wanted to keep me here,” Conner cried.

“You are staying here,” Lane said.

“The hell I am!”

“Conner! You’re making Jon upset,” Kent said. Jon was sobbing by now.

“Oh, of course, because the whole world is going to fall apart if I make Jon cry, Jon is upset? I’m upset! My friend was kidnapped, and you wanted to keep it a secret, but lord forbid you give a fuck about how I feel,” Conner snapped.

“Conner,” Lane hissed.

“No! Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t tell me to do anything, fuck both of you!” Conner shouted.

“Conner, it’s okay, you don’t understand, we need to leave things like these to the authorities,” Kent said.

“I don’t understand? I understand that if I leave this to the authorities, my friend is going to end up a missing poster for a week until some other kid goes missing, and then it’s going to be like he never existed, I understand perfectly, I’m not fucking stupid,” Conner said.

“No one is saying that you’re stupid,” Lane said.

“Then stop treating me like it!” Conner ordered.

“No one is treating you like anything, you just need to calm down and come inside, this is a complicated situation, and we don’t want you kids getting hurt,” Kent advised.

“That’s another thing, stop acting like you give a shit about me when we all know that you couldn’t care less if I just stopped coming home one day,” Conner said. Jon wailed in the background.

“Conner!” Lane gasped.

“What would ever make you say that?” Kent asked.

“I’m not fucking stupid, I know you wanted to ship me off to Ma and Pa’s, so you wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore, I know I’m only still here because you don’t want to make the kid you do fucking care about upset,” Conner snapped.

“Where did you hear about that?” Kent asked, noticeably denying nothing.

“I heard it because I’m not fucking stupid, I can tell when you’re talking about me behind my back, the walls in this house are thin as shit, and you don’t exactly guard your email,” Conner explained.

“Conner, we never meant to make you feel unwanted,” Lane soothed.

“I know you aren’t my real mom either, so you can stop acting like you care about me,” Conner said.

“I,” Lane wasn’t quite sure how to refute that. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’m not stupid, I told you, you’re not the only person in this house who knows how to listen, Lois,” Conner spat.

And the venom in his voice when he called her by her first name, as he always did when she wasn’t listening was like a smack to the face.

“You’ve put in the effort, you played the good parents, you can sleep easy knowing you pretended your best to care about me, but this conversation is over, I’m going to help my friends, the people who actually care about me, the ones who you made me turn my back on,” Conner said, pushing past his parents while Lane protested and Jon cried.

“Conner, wait,” Kent grabbed his son by the arm.

“He said leave him alone!” Cassie grabbed the closest thing she could grab, which happened to be one of Bart’s crutches, and smashed it as hard as she could against Clark Kent. It didn’t really hurt, if he was completely honest, but it shocked him enough that he loosened his grip. Conner started running once he was free, grabbing Bart by the wrist and dragging him along so that he could keep up. Cassie tossed the broken crutch to the side and chased after the boys.

“Conner! Get back here,” Lane cried after them, but the kids were gone.

They only stopped running when Bart cried out in protest as his knee really started hurting. They heaved for air while, catching their breath.

“I thought it was Tim who said he would punch my parents given the chance,” Conner recalled between heavy exhales.

“That wasn’t really a punch though,” Cassie pointed out.

“Yeah, fuck you for that by the way, I needed that,” Bart said.

“Consider it revenge for you being an ass,” Cassie said.

“I said I was sorry,” Bart said.

“And now we’re even.” Cassie shrugged.

“So, is it true?” Conner interrupted. “It really has Tim.”

They both nodded.

“Yeah,” Bart said, “It has Tim.”

“But not for long,” Cassie added.

“Then what’s the plan?” Conner asked.

“Go to Coast Street, get him back,” Cassie replied.

“That isn’t really a plan,” Conner said.

“Yeah, it’s more of an outline,” Bart agreed, “or a really shitty summary, or a super bad not-cool one-liner.”

“That was Ms. Gordon’s plan, don’t be an ass,” Cassie said.

“That’s really all Ms. Gordon could come up with?” Conner asked.

“She said most of her plans involve Tim being present,” Cassie said.

“So, what do we do without Tim?” Bart wondered.

“Tim will come up with a better plan when we find him,” Cassie suggested.

And neither Bart nor Conner had a better plan, so they let it go.

“Then let’s go get Tim back,” Conner decided.

“Hey,” Bart asked as they began to walk, and he hobbled alongside them on his one remaining crutch. “Did you mean what you said back there? About Tim being your best friend? I thought I was your best friend.”

Conner laughed and shoved him gently, which was still much harder than he intended, partially due to unspoken remaining tension, but Cassie caught him before he fell. “I’ve missed you Bart, but I meant what I said.”

On the way to the house on Coast Street, the kids all knew that something still wasn’t quite right. Something was still missing.

But it was better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Hal Jordan's nap schedule is the biggest mood I've ever written. I largely say that because I don't want to be awake right now, but still a big mood. More importantly, we've got most of the kids back together, and it can only get better from here. I hope you enjoyed.


	27. The Devil Wore Makeup

Tim woke up to something warm and wet striking the side of his face. For an instant, he let himself believe that it was rain, he could feel a cold hard ground, damp beneath him, and a draft that could have been an early breath of Autumn air. Then he opened his eyes, only slowly, expecting to be attacked by the bright lights of the outdoors. He saw nothing at first, but his eyes slowly got used to the darkness to see the sea of greywater surrounding him. Tim ran an exhausted hand over his wet cheek and brought it back in front of his face to see red. By now, he wasn’t even really surprised.

Finally, his memories of where he had been and what he had seen in the seconds before he lost consciousness came flooding back. Jason’s room. Those yellow eyes and that big grin. And now he was in the sewers, Tim would bet all that remained of his father’s fortune that he was under Coast Street.

He had to get out of there.

Using shaking arms for support, Tim rose to his knees, then he stood on wobbling legs. Everything felt wrong. Like he was standing on a steep incline, only there wasn’t any incline at all, it only felt like it. He really didn’t like that feeling. He stood as straight as he could, trying to stand properly while knowing that he was leaning heavily to one side for no good reason. Then he took a step forward. So far so good. So, he took another. That step went well also. The third step, he felt his balance topple. Tim took a forth, sixth, and seventh step as quickly as he could before gravity or his knees, he couldn’t tell which, betrayed him, and the only think that kept him from returning to his position lying on his face was grabbing hold of the closest thing he could grab.

Spots danced across his vision, he felt awful. When his vision cleared, Tim looked over to see what he was holding on to. The gory, pessimistic side of himself was prepared to see a severed human arm, or a skull in his hand.

It was a rocking horse.

A simple rocking horse, not the ornate kind that could be sold online for thousands of dollars. It was slightly damp from the heavy air in the sewers, but still in good shape. The rocking horse was trapped in a pile of old toys upon closer inspection. Jack-in-the-boxes, teddy bears, porcelain dolls, toy trains, jump ropes, tricycles, baseball bats, all tightly packed together in a heap. Looking around slowly, since slowly was all Tim could manage at the moment, he noticed the heap of toys he leaned on was just the outskirts of a larger pile of toys reaching high towards a grated ceiling. And surrounding the toys they really did float.

Too high for Tim to recognize any faces, but they were floating. Just like It said they would be.

He released the rocking horse and took staggering steps back to get a closer look. Dozens of bodies, just floating there.

“Jason?” Tim asked the floating figures, but he received no reply.

_“You’ll float too.”_

Tim had to get out of there.

He turned in a circle, and that was all it took to make him dizzy. But he noticed the door behind him.

He ran towards the door, only stumbling once over the distorted reality of the sewer this time, and colliding with the door with a metallic clang. He pushed harder. The door merely clanged, Tim pulled. The door made it’s same metallic heavy door noises. He placed his foot beside the door for balance, and he pulled as hard as he could, promising silently that he would never complain about the weight of the door to the library ever again if the door in front of him would just open.

“Timberly,” a voice whispered behind him. All struggling with the door ceased immediately.

Tim listened closely.

And he heard the music box sing.

“Oranges and lemons, /Say the bells of St. Clement’s,” the music box sang without words. And then it stopped.

Tim listened harder.

Nothing.

Then a loud, inhuman laughing he hated to recognize assaulted his ears. Tim clung closely to the door.

“Step right up, Timberly,” the automated voice of a carnival game cried, crackling and breaking. “Step right up. Come change, come cold, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer, you'll die. Introducing…”

And the track fizzled out. For a moment, there was silence again. Then Tim heard that laughing again, and a new music box played.

The kind that was used in a jack in the box.

He had to get out of there.

Another quick scan of the sewer let Tim see the other side of the sewer. A gaping open exit. It would mean running past the mountain of toys and under all the floating children, but Tim cast that thought from his mind. He was halfway there before his brain even realized he had started running.

“Pop! Goes the weasel!” Tim’s mind provided the words that weren’t sung.

And the pile of toys exploded open. Toys blocking the hidden doorway were shattered or crushed or sent flying when it collapsed open. Heat flooded the sewer when the door opened to the fiery oven of Hell. And leaping out of Hell came the devil himself, all dressed in his ill-fitting purple suit and clown makeup.

Tim screamed when It jumped out of the flames, landing with a tremendous splash right in front of Tim before he could shy away. It reached out and took his neck in one hand with a fluid movement. Tim’s feet were off the floor.

He didn’t want to float.

It laughed at him. It mocked his surprised scream and then It just laughed harder.

Tim hated to notice how much better It looked since the last time he had seen It, tired and hungry in what he knew was just upstairs. But It had eaten since. It was stronger now. Tim hadn’t really stopped to think about how while he and Cassie were trying to find a way to fight It all by themselves, It had just as much time to prepare for them. The scars he and Cassie had left were gone, like they had never hurt It. Like they could never hurt It.

Spots began to dance across Tim’s vision all over again. He kicked out and he clawed at the narrow fingers around his throat in a futile display of protest.

It just laughed even harder.

“I’m not scared of you,” Tim spat through his struggling airpipe.

That shut It up.

It stared at him with those yellow eyes. Then It pulled him close. Tim grit his teeth and met his gaze. It was true. He wasn’t scared. There was no need to be scared. His friends would come for him. They would never leave him in Its clutches. He wasn’t scared. He heard It inhale sharply through Its nose. Tim had never noticed before, but It had a very long, narrow nose. He only noticed now because he was not afraid.

It held him further away again with a sneer. But that sneer twisted into a blank expression. Tim’s stomach twisted with it.

“You will be,” It said.

And Its mouth unhinged to show off all those layers of teeth.

But Tim was not afraid.

Then he heard children laughing. One child in particular. Jason. Laughing and unharmed, just like Tim knew he would be. He heard rain knocking on the windows. And the door opening.

He saw a bright light.

And then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that I watched the scene from the movie a few times to work out the blocking. I really need to figure out action scenes, because they really are the worst. But I hope you enjoyed.


	28. Below Coast Street

Bart thought for a split second that Conner was really going to drop him down the well, just to get petty revenge for Bart’s calling him stupid. Repeatedly. When he knew how he felt about that.

“Don’t drop me,” Bart pleaded.

“Then hold on tighter,” Conner advised. And Bart realized that the problem was not malicious intent to throw him, but the fact that he was carrying a human boy without a knee on his back and climbing down a rope ladder. Cassie was ahead of them with her arm looped through Bart’s remaining crutch. Bart wasn’t sure how much he trusted her with that, between her teeth she held Tim’s silver knife.

When the three kids returned to the house on Coast Street, the door was left wide open for them. It invited their challenge. Mocked the threat they hoped to pose.

“Let’s go,” Cass said. Leading the way with her boys on her heels.

“Tim said the well was in the basement,” Conner said.

“Well, where’s the basement?” Bart asked.

“This way.” Again, Cassie went to take the lead, since she was the only one Tim had the chance to describe the exact layout of the house to.

“Wait.” Bart stopped her. “I want to check something?”

“What?” Cassie asked.

Bart hobbled slowly towards the kitchen. He held his breath before he opened the door, Cassie and Conner shared a look, then they followed him, wanting to be supportive.

“I knew it,” Bart whispered. And with extreme difficulty, he crouched down to the knife of the floor, exactly where Tim had dropped it when It said Jason’s name. “Tim really doesn’t stand a chance, does he?”

“Tim is tough,” Cassie said.

“But all It has to do is mention Jason and he crumbles, he acts tough, but really, he’s just as scared as the rest of us,” Bart said.

“Tim isn’t afraid of It, and neither are we,” Cassie insisted.

“Aren’t we?” Bart asked.

“You said you weren’t, and I believed you,” Cassie reminded.

Bart remembered. “So long as you promise to have my back, there shouldn’t be anything to be afraid of.

“Conner?” Cassie asked.

“I just yelled at Clark Kent and Lois Lane, if I’m not afraid of that, I’m not afraid of some clown,” Conner said.

“Then we’re in agreement, we aren’t afraid, and neither is Tim, he’ll hold out until we can get to him,” Cassie decided.

“Okay.” Bart reached down to pick up the knife, but Conner stopped him.

“Wait, why would It leave that there? Why would it give us a weapon? It doesn’t make sense,” Conner asked.

“Because monsters can’t touch silver,” Bart said.

“Couldn’t It just grab the handle?” Conner suggested.

“Tim told me the whole knife is lined with silver, there isn’t an inch of it for It to touch that won’t leave It burnt, assuming silver is a weakness, that is,” Cassie explained.

“And the fact It left it here for us suggests that it is,” Bart deduced. He lifted the knife, all three kids held their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it didn’t. Bart rose to his feet with a hand from Cassie. He weighed the knife in his hand for a moment, then he offered it to her. “You take it.”

“What? Why? It was your idea,” Cassie said.

“Yeah, but you’re the leader now, that means you get the knife.” Bart offered the knife again, Cassie threw her hands in the air as if he was pointing a gun at her.

“If anyone’s the leader in this group, it’s Tim,” Cassie said.

“You might not have noticed, but Tim isn’t here right now,” Bart reminded, “Tim is missing, he can’t be our leader.”

“Fine, then Ms. Gordon’s our leader, she’s the one pulling all of our strings,” Cassie suggested.

“Yeah, she can’t exactly be here either,” Conner pointed out. The lone earpiece in Cassie’s ear had returned to its static buzz when she entered the house.

“What about you, Conner, don’t you want to be the leader?” Cassie asked.

Conner shrugged and crossed his arms to close off the possibility. “You’re the one who brought us back together, Bart’s right, it should be you.”

“It has to be you,” Bart corrected.

Still, Cassie hesitated.

“Just take it,” Conner ordered, “it isn’t exactly rocket science.”

Cassie scoffed. She took the knife. It was heavy in her hand. “Don’t expect me to throw it, because knowing me, I’ll end up taking out Bart’s other knee.”

“You know, on second thought, maybe you shouldn’t have the knife,” Bart said.

Conner nudged him, Bart laughed. “Lead the way, leader.”

“Let’s go get Tim,” Cassie agreed.

The well was just like the door, all prepared and welcoming them into Its clutches. Rope ladder descending into the darkness.

“My knee isn’t good enough to get me down there,” Bart said.

Both boys turned to Cassie. That’s what being the leader meant, after all.

“Conner will carry you down,” Cassie decided.

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Conner said.

“I’m the leader now, that means you have to listen to my terrible ideas, you take Bart, I’ll take the crutch, and let’s go.”

And so, they descended. Cassie going first, because that’s what being the leader meant, and then Conner, with Bart’s arms tightly clutching around his neck.

“Are we almost there?” Conner asked.

Cassie said something muffled by the knife between her teeth.

“Thanks,” Conner said, nodding like he had understood.

He couldn’t see it, but Cassie rolled her eyes. He looked down when he heard a small splash, like stepping in a puddle.

“I said: yes, the well lets out into the sewer another ten feet down,” Cassie told them, taking the knife out of her mouth and setting it safely beside her.

Bart snickered on Conner’s back.

“Thanks,” Conner repeated himself.

“Cassie?” A voice whispered over the earpiece. Cassie didn’t turn around, she wouldn’t be led astray.

“Hurry up,” she urged instead.

“Cassie,” the voice hissed again.

“Here, take Bart,” Conner instructed, maneuvering awkwardly so that Cassie could grab Bart’s hand when he reached out to her, keeping his legs securely wound around Conner’s waist.

“Got him, give me your other hand,” Cassie said. Bart didn’t even think, he reached out again.

“Cassie, come float!” The voice ordered, and there was a sudden harsh tug at her ankle. Dragging her into the sewer. Her knee scabbed when it was scraped along the rough floor, and she smashed her chin against the same ground with her support unsettling her from her crouched kneeling position.

Cassie screamed. Then Bart screamed as she yanked hard on his shoulder to keep the sticky hand around her ankle from taking her even further. There were two hands now, one on her ankle and one holding her calf, they pulled again, and a chanting began in her ears.

“You’ll float too! You’ll float too! You’ll float too!” The voices screamed. More hands. They had her other leg now.

“Bart! Don’t let go!” Cassie pleaded.

“I’m going to fall!” Bart shrieked.

Conner grabbed hold of Bart’s flailing free hand, unsure of what else he could do to keep his friends with him opposed to being sucked into the sewer or falling down the well. His other hand held the ladder until his knuckles were white.

Bart looked down and he started screaming louder.

“Bart! Shut up!” Conner ordered.

“I’m going to fall!” Bart said again.

“No, you aren’t, we’ve got, you so long as we’ve got your back, there’s nothing for you to be afraid of, remember?” Conner said.

“But I’m going to fall!” Bart echoed a third time.

“We won’t let you,” Conner said.

Hands were all over Cassie’s legs up to her knees now. “Don’t be afraid,” Cassie instructed herself more than Bart. Her grip on his hand was slipping.

“I’m not afraid,” Bart insisted. “I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid.”

“Bart?”

“Conner let go of my hand, I need to get a better grip on Cassie,” Bart said.

“But you’ll—” Conner stopped himself.

“I won’t fall, I’m not afraid,” Bart said.

Conner let go. Bart reached quickly to grab Cassie’s other hand.

“Don’t be afraid Cassie, I’ve got you,” he instructed.

“I’m not afraid,” Cassie said. She pulled him after her, so he could get inside the sewer rather than hang out over the bottom of the well. She felt a hand slip from her knee. “I’m not afraid.” She pulled harder, like the hands weren’t a problem, and all she needed to do was get Bart into the sewers. And then that was all there was to it. The hands were gone, they took her left shoe with them, but she and Bart were sitting in the narrow entryway to the sewer, both of them safe.

“Thanks, for not letting go,” she said.

“Thanks for not dropping me,” he agreed.

“Move over, I can’t hang here all day,” Conner said.

Cassie picked up the knife and crawled back into the labyrinth of the sewer proper.

“It’s warmer down here than I expected,” Bart noted.

“Ew, that’s disgusting,” Cassie said.

“What? I’m not wrong,” Bart said.

“It’s always warm in Hell,” Conner suggested.

That set a somber mood over all of them.

“Cassie? Which way?” Bart asked.

“This way,” Cassie decided based on instinct alone.

Of course, she had to choose the most waterlogged path she could, but they followed her anyways. Intermittently taking turns to call out Tim’s name as they wandered. They waded up to their knees in greywater. Bart almost considered asking Conner to carry him again when his crutch caught on something under the water.

“Fuck,” Bart hissed, trying to dislodge the crutch, Cassie caught him before he could fall down.

“I’ll get it,” Conner offered, because kneeling really wasn’t such a great idea for Bart.

“Thanks,” Bart said.

Conner plunged one hand under the murky water and grabbed the crutch in the other. Bart’s crutch had lodged itself inside something solid, but soft, Conner tangled his hand in something like a thick clump of string and took the crutch in the other, then he dislodged the crutch.

“Thanks,” Bart said once he was solidly grounded again.

“No problem,” Conner said, and he released the thing that had held Bart’s crutch. Or he tried to, but the string clung tightly to his hand. He grimaced, just knowing that whatever he was forced to drag out of the water was going to be gross. He lifted his hand slowly. Whatever his hand was tangled in was black and thick. He rose his hand higher to meet face to face with a decapitated head. One eye crushed inside her head from where Bart had stepped on her. Face eternally frozen in an expression of unparalleled glee. Grinning at him. Conner stared into her one good eye, trying to keep his breathing even and to tell if she was a face he recognized as someone else gone missing. Nothing existed outside of him and that unseeing black eye. That was when the hair turned to wire, and they pulled tight against his hand until he bled. “Fuck,” Conner hissed, he tried to pull the wires off, but they just dug in deeper. He grabbed his skull to pull it away from his hand. It crumbled easily in his hand. Then he had one hand shredding itself on the woman’s wire hair, the other holding fragments of brain and flesh and blood. His breath caught in his throat.

“Conner!” Cassie shouted.

Conner blinked. The water had risen. Rather than coming up to his waist while crouching, it rested by his neck now.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Conner recalled, he took a deep breath. And from nowhere in particular, a wave rose, submerging him completely for a moment. He gasped under the water, and he heard his friends call out to him. Then the water was gone, and so were the wires. Conner rose to his feet choking on greywater. His hand was bloody and torn, but he was okay.

“Did you just get greywater in your mouth?” Bart asked, “dude, that is so gross, someone peed in that.”

“Don’t remind me,” Conner said.

“Is your hand okay?” Cassie asked.

“Fine,” Conner replied. Which was a lie, because it stung like a bitch. But Conner would survive.

“Tim! You’d better be close because it’s really gross down here!” Bart shouted. He took a step forward and he kicked something. A leg rose to the surface. He looked ahead. Severed limbs and body parts floated all through the greywater ahead. He swallowed heavily. “I’m gonna guess we need to go that way.”

“Yeah,” Cassie agreed.

And they resumed walking, wading through the corpse-infested sewer, calling out to Tim irregularly. They all sort of expected the corpse pieces to move, to grab at them. But they never did. The water levels evened out until soaked shoes slapped against puddles on the damp ground. Then they were faced with a heavy-looking set of iron doors.

“Open them,” Cassie ordered.

Conner and herself had to push hard before they budged, but once they started moving, the door swung right open.

And they saw the tower of old toys leading to the grated light, and all the bodies floating high above.

“They really do float,” Bart whispered, almost in awe of the sight.

“Tim!” Conner cried when he saw their friend.

“Conner be careful!” Cassie ordered, but Conner didn’t listen. The order wasn’t for him, but Bart didn’t listen either. Soon the whole team was running to stand beneath Tim. Floating above them. Staring up with empty eyes.

“Tim!” Conner shouted again, but the floating boy couldn’t stir. Or maybe he just didn’t want to.

“We need to get him down from there,” Cassie said.

“How? Bart asked. Conner tried to jump. His fingers traced the sole of Tim’s red converse. Still damp, which he took to be a good sign.

“Conner let me climb on your shoulders,” Cassie instructed.

Conner rolled his eyes but crouched down anyways to let her climb on. He would have complained about how he always had to be the one carrying people, but he knew exactly why it had to be him. Bart helped Cassie to securely sit on Conner’s shoulders, then he stood as tall as he could. Cassie grabbed hold of Tim’s ankle, it was cold. She pulled him down. He didn’t try to float back up, so she grabbed him by the knee and pulled again. Then the edge of his shirt. By now, Bart could reach his friend’s ankle, and saw to him getting securely to the floor while Conner let Cassie down as carefully as he could while impatiently wanting to get to Tim. She fell the last couple of inches to the ground, but she regained her balance before she fell on her ass. And she couldn’t even bring herself to care because in another instant, she was at Tim’s side too. Conner held their friend by the shoulders.

“Tim? Tim, wake up buddy.” He shook him hard but glazed over blue eyes stared at the nothingness ahead. Not just like he was looking straight through his friends, but like he was looking straight through everything. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing. “Why isn’t he waking up? Tim?”

“I don’t know, Tim?” Cassie tried calling too. She slapped him gently.

So, Conner slapped him hard with a loud cracking sound. Tim’s head jerked violently to the side. But otherwise, there was no reaction. He just stared blankly through the water.

“Conner!” Cassie gasped.

“Tim!” Conner was screaming now, he tried to shake him again. Tim didn’t fight, he just limply obeyed every movement enacted upon him like a ragdoll. “I did not cuss out my parents, piggyback Bart forty feet straight down and swallow piss-water just for you to already be dead! Wake the fuck up!”

“Conner don’t hurt him,” Cassie ordered, pulling Conner away from their friend before he could do any damage. Conner wouldn’t let go of the front of Tim’s shirt.

But Conner’s words gave Bart a wretched idea. He took Tim’s wrist in his hand, and he pressed two fingers against the inside of his wrist. He waited. He moved his hands to the boy’s neck. He waited again.

“Guys,” Bart’s shaking voice put a sudden halt to Conner and Cassie’s struggle. “Tim doesn’t have a pulse. He isn’t breathing.”

And that was when the music box started to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only three chapters left! I hope you're all excited.


	29. Just Us

“It’s here,” Cassie said as the music box began to play.

“What the fuck do you mean Tim isn’t breathing,” Conner asked Bart, the music box and It a non-issue in his mind compared to the boy he was still holding on to.

“He isn’t breathing, he’s already dead,” Bart said. “Cassie, what do we do?”

“What do you mean he’s dead? He can’t be dead, he’s Tim, we need him,” Conner insisted.

“He’s dead, he isn’t breathing, we’re too late, what more do you want me to say? Tim is dead,” Bart said. “Cassie, what do we do?”

“Tim is not dead!” Conner insisted.

“I don’t want to believe it either, but that’s what it means when a person isn’t breathing and has no pulse, Cassie, what do we do?” Bart asked one more time.

“Stop asking me that,” Cassie snapped, “I don’t know, this is the part where Tim was supposed to take over.”

“Tim is dead.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Cassie, what do we do?”

“I don’t know!”

Laughter started to echo throughout the sewer. The argument ceased, and the children froze.

There was a slight tremor under Conner’s hands. “Tim?”

Tim moved slowly. Turning his face from gazing down at the water to look up at his friends. He stared right through them with empty yellow eyes.

“Tim?”

Invisible hands held either corner of the boy’s mouth, pulling them away from each other to force his face in an unwilling grin. Then he started laughing. A high, inhuman giggle bubbling out of his throat.

Conner let go of the front of his friend’s shirt. He stretched out his hands to stand protectively in front of Bart and Cassie, so that Tim would have no choice but to interact with him first.

“Are you afraid now?” The voice that asked wasn’t Tim’s, but it came out of Tim’s mouth.

“Let him go,” Conner ordered.

Tim just laughed harder, vomiting up giggles, finding it hilarious that the frightened boy before him still had the nerve to request things of him. He moved like he didn’t have any bones. Like he was nothing more than a puppet being dragged around a stage. He took uneven, light steps towards the mountain of toys, curling rigid fingers around a toy pistol. Then he began to step forward. The children remained frozen in a horrified trance.

He stood right beneath Conner’s chin, staring right up. “I know you are, I can smell the fear on you, he couldn’t stop me, how can any of you?”

And Conner could bear to do nothing but watch. Tim reached up with Hands that weren’t his. Long, demonic hands, like the true skin of It beneath the clown disguise they saw when Cassie impaled Its head. That hand traced over Conner’s cheek. He was so very cold.

“You really want me to give him back?” It asked through Tim’s lips.

“Please,” Conner agreed with a shaking voice.

And for only an instant, yellow eyes turned clear blue, and the unwelcome smile faded.

“Run,” Tim instructed.

“Tim!” Conner called.

The yellow eyes that saw nothing returned, and the grin spread wide. The toy gun pressed against the left side of Conner’s chest.

“Bang,” It whispered. Tim laughed.

Bart stabbed his crutch forward, jabbing Tim’s limp body in the stomach just as his finger curled around the trigger. A flag reading the word Bang popped out of the gun. Tim’s giggles descended into downright hysterics as he stumbled back. Cassie lunged while Conner took a moment to breathe, ducking under Conner’s arm so she could tackle Tim to the ground. The laughing continued, echoing all around them.

Cassie raised the silver knife.

“Don’t hurt Tim!” Conner ordered.

“Get out of him!” Cassie screamed as she drove the knife into their friend’s chest anyways. 

“Cassie! No!” Conner grabbed Cassie and pulled her violently away from their friend. Bart stood behind them. Feeling horribly useless. 

The laughing stopped. Tim took a deep breath and began to cough. He coughed so hard he cried, sobbing and coughing in pain. Then he curled in on himself on his side, away from his friends, and he coughed something colourful and inky into the water beside him, whites and greens and reds and yellows mixed in a murky black mass that had been trapped somewhere deep. He took a deep, heaving breath.

“Tim?” Conner called.

Tim just breathed, which was an improvement.

The colours seeped away in the water, none of the kids could bring themselves to care where they went, not yet, at least. Conner and Cassie crouched next to Tim, Bart stood behind them, and leaned down as well as he could.

“Tim? Are you with us?” Cassie asked.

Tim half turned to stare at them with clear blue eyes. “Cassie? Conner? Bart? What…” Tim coughed again. “My face hurts.”

Conner felt bad, remembering his poor reaction to their friend’s catatonic state.

“What happened to your hand?” Tim asked, noticing the blood Conner was getting all over his shirt when he placed a wary shredded hand on him.

Bart felt bed, remembering that only happened because his crutch got stuck.

Tim looked down. “There’s a knife in my chest.”

Cassie felt bad too.

“It possessed you, or something, that was the only thing I could think to get It out,” Cassie explained.

“I remember a light,” Tim said, “and Jason, laughing.” He glared at the water next to his face. The water was cool, it felt nice.

“It’s okay, Tim,” Cassie said, “it’s all over now, we’re going to get you out of here.”

Then, music. And laughter.

It laughed, filling every available millimetre of the sewer with Its entertainment. Cassie and Conner helped Tim to his feet, they all stood tightly together.

“You thought it was over?” It cackled somewhere unseen. “You thought I was done?”

It rebuilt Itself in the water. Slowly constructing cell by cell, making them watch the murky guts within reassemble, they watched it build a parody of blood and internals, a shell appearing more clay than skin wrapping all around and a heart put itself together until It stood before them in Its full clownish horror.

“No,” It said, still grinning that awful grin they would never grow accustomed to, “I’m not done until I’ve taken all of you, and I’ll feast on your flesh as I feed on your fear then, it will all be over.”

“You have the knife,” Cassie pointed out, which was still planted in Tim’s chest. “You’re the leader again, what’s the plan?”

“What does having the knife have to do with being the leader? Since when did we have a leader?” Tim asked.

“It happened while you were missing, now tell us the plan,” Conner said.

“You don’t have a plan?” Tim asked.

“The plan was to find you so that you could come up with a better plan,” Bart explained, “so, what do we do?”

Tim thought for a moment. It was hard to think with a knife in his chest, so he decided to remove it. A terrible decision, as the removal of a knife embedded to the hilt in his chest hurt just as much as he remembered. “What do we do?” Tim asked, blood already spurting from his wound. “We kill this fucking clown.”

It came quickly towards them upon Tim’s declaration of war. Cassie dislodged a baseball bat from the pile of toys, the dagger in Tim’s hands now, and took the first swing. It was a wooden bat, she silently thanked her luck for that. It spat up a sea of red-stained hands to catch the bat. She tried pushing more force behind her bat. A hand wrapped around her ankle. It tugged her foot from beneath her, so she fell back with a loud slam. Bart wasn’t the weapons type, he tossed his crutch to the side tackled It from the side before It had the chance to lean over Cassie. It stumbled, then swallowed up the hands it had produced for Cassie. Large pincer-like claws stabbed the ground as Bart regained his bearings and turned back to his team. It stabbed a claw directly through Bart’s foot. The boy screamed. Conner came with some thin spare piping he had found and stabbed right through It from behind, close, but not quite on the mark. It shrieked, and Its blood floated. It turned Its head to face Conner, and It wasn’t Its head anymore. It was the woman Conner had pulled out of the sewer. Its wiry hair reached out and grabbed around his head. It laughed, and Conner felt warm blood tricking around his face and ears and the back of his neck. Tim sliced through the hair with the silver knife and they fell limp. Cassie took her shot again, smashing her bat right against Its face so hard Its head spun around Its shoulders like a top, It stumbled and flailed Its clawed hands to keep the children back. Tim caught Conner when he stumbled back.

“Tim? Now would be a great time to kill that clown,” Bart suggested.

“I need to get closer,” Tim said.

“Why don’t you just throw the knife,” Conner suggested.

“We only have one shot at this, I need to get it right,” Tim said.

“Then we’ll stop it from moving,” Cassie decided.

It was still reeling. As Its head spun and It stumbled, Its body decided It was sick of the piping Conner had lodged in It. It launched the piping from Its body and caught Cassie’s arm. She screamed and dropped her bat when she saw the chunk of flesh that had been removed. It straightened Its stance. Bart smashed his remaining crutch over the back of Its head. It turned to face him. Conner swung at it with heavy iron chains he found. It turned again. Cassie grabbed the other end of Conner’s chain. Their eyes met and in unspoken unison they swung the chains again to catch It in the stomach. It toppled.

“Tim! Now!” Conner called.

Tim was already on top of It. And It shrunk to accommodate. Green hair turned to black, cold air pinched to bring colour to pale skin, yellow eyes turned to blue. And Tim was left paralysed.

“Tim, that isn’t Jason,” Cassie said.

“Don’t crumble,” Bart pleaded.

“Timberly?” Jason’s voice said. “What’s going on? What are you doing down here? What am I doing down here?”

“Jason,” Tim whispered.

“Timmy? What are you doing?”

“I’m…” he lost his voice for a moment. “I’m here for you, to bring you home, because we need you.”

Jason’s head nodded. “Okay, let’s go home.

“I wish we could,” Tim said, voice so much stronger than he had expected it to be. “But you killed my brother three years ago.”

Tim drove the knife deep into the form of his brother’s chest, to the left, right where he had seen It build Its heart. And the skin of his brother began to flake away. 

“And I’m not scared of that anymore,” Tim hissed at the fading face.

He would never forget the last time he saw Jason Todd. It was on a rainy day in mid-July. He was wearing his grey raincoat, zipped all the way up to his chin, the same jeans he had been wearing every day all week, and his yellow rain boots. He was twelve-years-old and freckled, with black hair that curled just a little bit in the front. When he opened the door and the icy air hit his face, his cheeks immediately flushed pink. And that was the very last time.

Once the disguise was gone, which took only seconds, Tim crouched over the face of the clown. He buried the knife deeper, until he heard it scrape against concrete on the other side of Its body. The clown began to chip away as well.

Until Tim was left with only the dark mass that made up Its heart. It pumped once. Twice. Then it was blown away like dust on the wind. Leaving only the bloody children behind to prove that anything had happened there at all.

It was dead.

And with It, Watchtower County died in a tremendous tremor that sent the mountain of toys and the sewer collapsing down with one last scream from each of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, I hate blocking fight scenes. I was thinking Joker Junior from the Return of the Joker movie for the beginning bit with Tim, that was my favourite part of the chapter. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Only a couple chapters left to settle everything.


	30. All Over

“Cassie? Cassie? Can you hear me?”

“Cassie, have you found Tim yet?”

“Ms. Gordon? Officer Grayson?” Cassie turned to her team in the small lucky pocket they had secured for themselves when the sewer collapsed over them. “The communicators are working again.”

“Hi Ms. Gordon!” Conner shouted at Cassie’s ear. She punched him rather pathetically in the shoulder.

“Woo,” Bart softly said, not bothering to move from the mostly comfortable position he was in lying back as well as he could.

“Is Dick there? Tell him to come get us out of here,” Tim said.

“I’m working on it,” Cassie hissed.

“Cassie, there was a huge earthquake that took out half the County, are you kids okay down there?”

“We’re still down here, but we’re still breathing, all four of us,” Cassie reported.

“You mean you found Tim? He’s okay?”

“Tim is,” she would have said fine, but he was still bleeding and most likely traumatized for life, “he’s alive,” she settled to say. “He wants you to hurry up and get us out of here, we’ve kind of been buried in the sewers in that earthquake, and we’re all bleeding.”

She heard Officer Grayson sob over her earpiece. She couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. His brother was safe, it was all okay.

“And It?”

“Dead.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, I’m sending Dick over now, you kids will be okay real soon, how serious are your injuries?”

“Tell Tim I’m coming.”

“Well, we’re sitting in the sewer, so everything’s probably infected, but nothing’s fatal,” Cassie replied.

“Okay, it’s all over now, Dick is on his way, but don’t be surprised if half the County shows up too, I think I heard him calling his dad on his way out.”

“Thanks for the heads-up Ms. Gordon, we really owe you for all this,” Cassie said.

“I’m just glad you’re all alive, come by the library when you’re all well enough.”

“It wasn’t damaged in the earthquake?” Cassie asked.

“A little earthquake isn’t going to shut down my library.”

“I guess not,” Cassie laughed a little.

“What’s she saying?” Bart asked.

“Shut up,” Cassie hissed.

“Bart?”

“Who else?” Cassie confirmed.

“I’ll let you take care of him, there’s a big mess to take care of on my end too.”

“Okay, thanks,” Cassie said. “Ms. Gordon?” She called after a moment’s hesitation.

“Yes?”

“It’s really over?”

“You said you killed It, and as a result, I think Watchtower County is dying too, and I say good riddance to it, yes, I think it’s really over.”

“Okay, thank you Ms. Gordon, bye.” Cassie’s ear was overrun by static.

“So? What did she say?” Bart asked.

“Your brother cried when I told him you were alive,” Cassie told Tim.

Even through the dim lighting, Cassie could see him roll his eyes in the fondest manner possible. “Of course, he did.”

“He’s on his way here now, Ms. Gordon said the earthquake we felt took out half the town, she says now that Its dead, Watchtower County is dying too,” Cassie repeated Ms. Gordon’s words.

“Good riddance,” Tim said.

“She said that too,” Cassie said, “also, Officer Grayson called your dad, and I’ll bet he called all of the rest of your families and Ms. Prince.”

Conner sighed. “I guess I’ll have to face them eventually, I’ll send you all a post card from Kansas.”

“That was more melancholy than usual,” Tim observed, Conner didn’t confess to not knowing what melancholy meant. “What happened with you and your parents?”

“I had to break out of prison to save your sorry ass,” Conner explained.

Tim blinked in confusion. “Yeah, I’m going to need more detail than that, I feel like I missed a lot in the time that It had me.”

“You did, there were some big epiphanies,” Bart said, only phrasing himself as he did to prove that he knew big words too.

“Okay, catch me up while we wait for Dick, Conner? How did you escape your parents? Bart? What made you change your mind? And what’s the deal with the knife making me the leader? I didn’t think we had a leader? I thought we were just us.”

The rest of the kids caught Tim up to speed while they waited to be rescued. None bothering to mention that the entire affair had left them so fucked up that they were hardly phased by the fact that they were all bleeding and buried alive in a sewer. But it wasn’t so bad. There was room for all of them to sit only somewhat uncomfortably, and they could feel a draft coming from somewhere, which meant they wouldn’t suffocate, although they wouldn’t dare try to find the draft and risk burying themselves deeper, they had contacted with the people above, who knew they were alive and their general location, all in all, their odds looked pretty good. They all were well aware that they were changed by their ordeal, they would likely never feel fear the same way ever again. But it was over now, so there was no point in pointing out what they all already knew. They lounged as best they could in their confined area talked as if sharing horror stories, the kind that happened to a friend of a friend’s cousin rather than real experiences that they had faced themselves. Then they heard voices not their own.

“Is that Dick?” Tim asked.

Cassie cupped her hands around her mouth. “We’re over here!” She hollered.

Then it was really over.

Light filled the darkness.

“Dad, over here!” Officer Grayson called before he quickly cleared enough rubble to slide down into their suddenly too-small refuge.

“Dick, we’re okay,” Tim said. 

Dick held his brother close, crushing him against his shoulder. “You’re really okay, I thought you were dead,” he whispered, Tim heard a sniffle against his hair, but he returned the hug without complaint.

“He was,” Bart chirped helpfully.

“He what?”

“Yeah, when we found him, he wasn’t breathing, so Cassie had to stab him,” Bart explained.

“Bart,” Cassie hissed.

“You did what?” Dick pulled away from his brother to see the stab wound in his chest had stained into his shirt as well, he shot Cassie a wet, dirty look. “You stabbed my little brother.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cassie said.

“And it was, I would probably be dead now if that hadn’t worked,” Tim said, giving Dick a look that pleaded for him to drop the issue.

Dick did not. “Yeah, well, she could have killed you if she stabbed you wrong too.”

“But she didn’t,” Tim said.

“But she could have.”

“Can we get out of this hole now?” Conner asked. He didn’t need to think about the whole affair again, especially not in front of Officer Grayson. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t one of them. He would never know exactly what happened or what they endured and survived down there that day.

And Dick recalled that he was there on a rescue mission. “Yeah, is everyone good to walk?”

“I’m not,” Bart said, “my knee hurts and my foot really hurts.”

Dick grit his teeth when he saw the state of Bart’s foot. Under further examination, all of the kids were pretty roughed up. Clothes were torn where they could be to make up makeshift bandages, but Dick saw Conner’s hand and neck were shredded, Cassie was missing most of the skin on her chin and knees and a chunk of flesh from her arm, Tim had clearly been stabbed in the chest, bone was visible in Bart’s foot, and he already had his knee injury.

“Okay, I’ve got you.” Dick reluctantly released his brother to pick up Bart. He was much better at carrying the boy than Conner was, being an actual adult.

“I thought you were dead,” Conner mockingly cooed after Dick had turned to carry Bart out of the sewer, once and for all.

“Shut up,” Tim hissed. Conner laughed when Tim hit him.

“They’re over here!” Dick shouted, setting Bart down on the surface before turning to the other kids, offering Cassie his hand first. Conner denied the offer for help, crawling out himself. Dick offered his hand to his brother. Tim took one last look at what was left of the sewer. It was gone. Jason was gone. Watchtower County was dying. It was all over. He took his brother’s hand.

Cass reached him first, stopping her sprint a foot in front of his face. She touched the blood on his shirt. Then she punched him right where the other Cassandra stabbed him. Dick startled, Tim doubled over.

“What was that for?” He coughed.

Cass took her turn to hug him. “Made us worry,” she mumbled, then released.

“I’m sorry,” Tim said.

“Never again,” she ordered, he nodded, she nodded too, satisfied with their exchange.

“Timothy.” Damian had his eyes glued to the blood covering his brother’s front. “I am surprised but relieved to see you survived.”

Tim rolled his eyes. Damian clearly wasn’t going to initiate the gesture, so he pulled his brother in for a hug himself. “I was worried about you too, brat.”

“Why would you worry for me? I wasn’t the one stupid enough to get captured.” Damian grabbed fistfuls of the bloodstained fabric of his brother’s shirt, he buried his face in it to muffle the sound of any involuntary tears which he most certainly did not shed. He whispered quietly enough that he hoped only the intended party could hear him, “if you do anything like this again, I’ll kill you.”

Tim laughed.

“Tim?” Damian let her brother go to pass him on to the next family member. Ms. Kyle had clearly been crying for a while. Mascara ran all the way down her cheeks to her chin.

“Mom?” Tim said.

Ms. Kyle couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or sob, so the noise she made was an odd combination of both. “Are you okay?” She didn’t even care about getting his blood over her expensive white blouse when she wrapped her arms around him.

“I’m okay,” Tim replied.

“Good,” Ms. Kyle sniffled, “I was going to kill your father if you weren’t.”

Tim frowned slightly. “Are you going to be okay? You and dad?”

“Yes, we’re going to be okay.” She didn’t realize she meant it until she said it, and she knew she thought she would just be saying what her son needed to hear. But she and Wayne would be okay. And speaking of Wayne, Ms. Kyle turned to him when she let her son go. “We’re all okay.”

Wayne was there himself as soon as she let her son go, stepping back to give the man a moment with his son. He collapsed to his knees, ran a hand through his son’s hair, then pulled him close. Neither said a word while Tim returned the gesture. He felt tears finally pour out against his father’s shoulder.

“Kon!” Startled from watching the Wayne family’s reunion Conner had no other warning before Jon collided with him. Jon was crying. Again.

“Hey, Jon,” Conner said. He went to return the gesture, then remembered his hand. So, he tried to squeeze as much comfort as he could into a one-armed hug.

Lane and Kent stood back, unsure of how to approach their boy, but neither wanting anything more than to see whether or not he was okay.

“You’re bleeding,” Jon sobbed.

Conner tried not to laugh. “Yeah, but I’m gonna be okay, It can’t hurt me anymore, and It won’t hurt you either.”

“But It hurt you,” Jon said.

“I’m okay, it was all worth it,” he leaned over his brother and whispered into his hair. “I’m gonna miss you.”

That startled Jon. “Where are you going?”

“Shh,” Conner hissed, his parents weren’t standing so far away that they couldn’t hear their conversation.

“Conner, you don’t need to go anywhere,” Kent said, wary of how to interpret his youngest’s outburst.

“But, aren’t you going to send me to Kansas? To live with Ma and Pa? Because I disobeyed you and got hurt, again,” Conner asked.

“You can’t send Kon to Kansas!” Jon wailed.

“No one said anything about Kansas,” Lane said.

“But I broke the rules,” Conner said.

“And you will be punished for that,” Lane agreed.

Conner started to shrink back. Then he remembered that he didn’t need to anymore. “Okay.”

“Conner,” Kent said, Conner met his gaze. “Lois and I, we kept secrets from you, and we see now how we might have treated you poorly, but we never meant to hurt you, and we don’t want you to believe that we don’t care about you, because I promise, we do, it’s just…”

“Hard? To care about me?” Conner suggested.

Kent wanted to deny that. “Never hard to care, but sometimes hard to show it,” he confessed, “and that isn’t your fault, you’re our son, just as much as Jon is, it’s our job to figure out how to express that we do love you, because we love you, I promise you that, and we’re going to work on it, we aren’t going to make you go to Kansas, or keep you away from your friends, we’re going to do better, and we want you to talk to us if we ever make you feel this way again, okay?”

“Okay,” Conner agreed. And he wasn’t quite sure what to do after that. He knew what he wanted to do, sure, but he wasn’t sure how to do it.

Luckily, Jon did. He took his brother by the hand and led him to their parents slowly. Once the boys were close enough, it all fell together. Lane and Kent collapsed down to hold them both close.

It was nice. Jon wasn’t the only one who cried.

“Hey, kid,” Hal Jordan said.

“Hi Grampa Hal,” Bart said.

“How’d it go?” Hal Jordan asked.

“I’m glad I went,” Bart decided, “they all would have died without me.”

“Was it scary?”

“Not really, I wasn’t alone or anything, I trust my friends.”

Hal Jordan laughed. “Well, it’s good that one of us had a good time today.”

“What happened with you?” Bart asked.

“I had to call Barry and tell him the house fell down and I didn’t know where you were,” Hal Jordan replied.

“The house fell down?” Bart asked.

“The earthquake didn’t just take down the sewer,” Hal Jordan explained.

“Oh.” Bart hadn’t considered that. “Where are we going to live?”

“Well, Barry and Iris are gonna stay with the Garricks for another week, I’m gonna mooch us a favour off of somebody,” Hal Jordan said.

“Oh, we can mooch off Conner,” Bart suggested, “we let him stay with us when he had a concussion, and we didn’t tell anybody, so now he owes us.”

“Huh, you have a point,” Hal Jordan said, “no fear and already an expert freeloader, we might make a Jordan out of you yet.”

“I don’t want to be a Jordan, I’m an Allen,” Bart insisted,

“You don’t get to decide what side of the family you take after,” Hal Jordan said, “you need help up?”

“Can’t I sit?” Bart asked. Maybe the first time he had ever said those words.

“Yup,” Hal Jordan chuckled, “definitely a Jordan.” He scooped his pseudo-grandson up in his arms before he noticed something. “Bart, where are your crutches.”

And it was like he flipped a switch. “Grampa Hal, you won’t believe what happened!”

Cassie jumped when Ms. Prince lay a hand on her shoulder. She relaxed when she saw who it was and smiled proudly.

“We did it,” she reported.

“I knew you could,” Ms. Prince said, “you have a warrior’s spirit, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

“I called your mother.” Cassie’s smile faded. “She heard about the earthquake on the news, she said she’ll rush the divorce and be here to get you next week.”

“Oh,” Cassie sighed. She had almost pushed from her mind the fact that she would need to leave her friends and Watchtower County behind at the end of summer. But now the end of summer was here early, and she couldn’t avoid it anymore. She really was an outsider, and like all outsiders, she would have to return from whence she came.

“Are you okay? Ms. Prince asked.

“Yeah, just weird to think that it’s all over,” Cassie said.

“You’re going to miss it here,” Ms. Prince realized.

Cassie laughed. “Miss it? Here? Not a chance, I’m glad it’s dying, this place is evil, and crap, it’s just weird.”

“What is?”

“It’s really over.”

And it really was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is really more of an epilogue than anything else, but I still think it's important to the story. Everyone's happy and alive, and they're all gonna be okay, so I'll call this one a happy ending (except Jason's still dead, so there's that, but otherwise happy). Tomorrow we're gonna wrap all this up, I hope you've enjoyed so far.


	31. Chapter 31

It was getting hard to remember what they had spent all summer doing. They were sitting in their pyjamas on the floor of their library study room and it was hard to believe that they hadn’t spent the entire summer right there, watching Bart trying to toss a Cheeto in his mouth only to choke when he actually succeeded. There were telltale proofs that something strange had happened, such as the injuries and bloodied paper airplanes that Cassie couldn’t resist hiding amongst her luggage, and there were stories that didn’t fully make sense, but for the most part, remembering any of It was hard and took some serious concentration. Tim said that when he mentioned the incident with It in the kitchen, a fearful flicker was all the proof that some part of Damian’s subconscious remembered. The day after it had all gone down the details of the ordeal had already begun to flee their collective minds, Tim had proposed they write everything they could remember down. Ms. Gordon had a copy of their notes properly bound for each of them, and a copy for herself, but still, even with a physical copy of the events in their hands, It still seemed to slip through their fingers. 

On the last day of summer, August ninth, the kids had begged Ms. Gordon to let them sleep over in the library, with it having become something like their home base. She only relented because she knew it could very well be the last time the four kids would ever be in a room together, she even let them bring snacks.

“Maybe I could hide in here for an extra week, you guys could bring me chips and pepsi every day and my mom would never think to look for me in a library,” Cassie suggested.

“That’s exactly what we need, a new missing children’s case,” Tim said.

“I just thought I would have more time to actually hang out with you guys, it feels like July passed by just like that.” She tried to snap her fingers, but failed, she tried again, Bart and Conner helped until Conner finally snapped properly.

“Speak for yourself, I feel like I’ve seen Bart more than I ever wanted to in my entire lifetime,” Conner said after his successful snap.

“You’re going to miss me when I’m gone,” Bart said.

“When are you leaving again?” Tim asked.

“Next week,” Bart replied.

“All the way out to Manchester, right?” Conner said.

“Yeah, to live with some old dude I’ve never even met until Gramma Iris and Grampa Barry get back on their feet, I don’t get why I can’t stay with them at the Garricks, or go live with Wally,” Bart confirmed.

“Where’s Hal Jordan going? Mom and dad are getting pretty sick of him living on our couch,” Conner said.

“He says he’s going to skip town as soon as Mr. Crandall picks me up next week, didn’t say where he was gonna go,” Bart replied.

“That guy is so weird,” Conner observed.

“What about you?” Tim asked, “is your family taking off too?”

“Mom and dad are thinking about Kansas, they’re only putting off making it official because they think I’ll freak after they specifically said that no one was going to Kansas,” Conner said.

“Would you freak? If you went to Kansas?” Cassie asked.

“Hell yeah, I would, I don’t want to be a farmer, moving to Kansas means waking up at dawn every morning in a house that smells like shit and more chores than any of you guys are going to do in your collective lives, I’ve visited my grandparents before, Kansas sucks,” Conner complained.

“But?” Cassie added expectantly.

“But, dad loves it there, and we can’t exactly stay here, he’s thinking of bribing us with a dumb dog if we agree to the move,” Conner said.

“Did you just say a dumb dog? You don’t want a dog?” Bart was completely dumbfounded.

“I’m not a dog person,” Conner shrugged, “if the choice is getting a dog but moving to Kansas or no dog but moving to Hawaii or something, I’d take Hawaii in a heartbeat.”

“If Gramma Iris and Grampa Barry got me a dog, I would live with Mr. Crandall forever,” Bart said.

“You know, I totally would have pegged you for a dog person, does that mean you’re a cat guy?” Cassie observed.

“Not really, I don’t know, I’m just not a dog person,” Conner said.

“Huh, I wouldn’t have guessed,” Cassie repeated.

“Yeah, how about you Tim?” Conner asked.

“I’m a cat person, I guess Selina rubbed off on me, she has like, ten million cats that just come and go as they please,” Tim said.

“Not that, where are your folks looking to move you?” Conner asked.

“Oh, they’ve been talking about New Jersey a lot, but nothing’s set in stone yet,” Tim replied.

“I’ve always wanted to live in a big city like New Jersey,” Conner sighed.

“New Jersey isn’t a city, it’s a state, it has its own suburbs,” Tim said.

“But are you moving to a suburb?” Conner asked.

“Probably not,” Tim confessed.

“I rest my case,” Conner said.

Bart was suddenly struck with an unspeakable horror, which he spoke anyways, because he’s Bart Allen. “What if I get an accent?”

“What? Where did that come from?” Cassie asked.

“I was just thinking, I’m pretty sure Alabama is a southern state, what if I pick up a southern accent while I’m there?” Bart wondered.

“Bart, please, for the love of all that is good on this planet, do not have an accent the next time I talk to you,” Conner pleaded.

“But what if they infect me?” Bart asked.

“An accent is not a disease, but depending on how long you stay there, you’ll probably pick up a little twang,” Tim said.

“Oh my god, forget about Bart with an accent, what if you picked up an accent?” Conner asked.

“Me?” Tim said.

“Yeah, what if you picked up that New Jersey thing,” Conner suggested.

“I would never let that happen,” Tim decided.

“But what if you did?” Conner said.

“Never,” Tim hissed.

“At least New Jersey’s interesting,” Bart sulked.

“At least you get to stay and hang out for an extra week,” Cassie moped.

“I thought you told Ms. Prince you weren’t going to miss this place,” Tim recalled.

“How do you even know about that?” Cassie asked.

“I know everything,” Tim said with a shrug. They couldn’t quite tell if he was kidding or not.

“I don’t know,” Cassie confessed, “I’m not going to miss Watchtower County, but I’m going to miss you guys, and the library, and I just wish I could stay until the actual end of summer, pretty soon I’m going to be back in California, and Bart’s going to Alabama, and I don’t know where you two are going to go, probably Kansas and New Jersey, but you’ll be gone too, and I just wish we could push off the last time we ever hang out in here.”

“Yeah, it’s going to suck when your mom picks you up tomorrow,” Conner agreed, “but who says that we’re never going to see each other again.”

“Common sense and probability?” Tim suggested.

Conner kicked him slightly. 

“We’ll still call, or text, or write letters if we have to, do people still write letters anymore?” Bart asked.

“I just worry, we’re already forgetting what happened on Coast Street, what if we leave and we forget about each other too?” Cassie wondered.

“We won’t,” Tim said.

“How can you be sure?” Cassie asked.

“I just am, being apart won’t mean we aren’t us,” Tim said. It was gone, but there was still something unspoken between the four of them. And they may someday soon forget what it was, but it would never go away.

“Just us,” Conner added.

Bart groaned. “I still think we could have come up with something way cooler if you guys had just listened to me.”

“Whatever, hey Bart, I bet you five bucks that you can’t catch this in your mouth,” Conner dared, arming a Cheeto that Bart immediately prepared himself to catch.

And the tension was gone, the kids were just kids for one more night together.

The next morning, Cassie’s mom took her back to Gateway City. Bart left a week later for Manchester, to live with his uncle Max for much longer than anticipated. Conner did end up going to Smallville, Kansas with his family, although he complained heartily about it. Tim’s family left for Gotham City just as August ended. Ms. Gordon ended up in Gotham City as well, where her library had a little shelf in the back filled with old books and notes on a horror story somewhere no one had ever heard of before. Watchtower County was paved over and eventually forgotten, completely absent from any maps, and the only proof that anything had ever occurred there were a set of books, a paper airplane covered in blood, a silver knife, and a long series of text messages from a group that could never quite recall where or how they met, but never dared to break contact either. They could only remember that they met one very important summer in Watchtower County.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! Sending my kids all on their different paths far away from each other broke my heart a little bit, but we can pretend they all run into each other again someday. I hope you've all enjoyed this adventure, if you did enjoy please feel free to leave comments telling me so, or just on things you liked or think I could improve on for my next stories, and Happy Halloween!

**Author's Note:**

> The treat is the story, the trick is that Jason is dead. Not exactly a fair trade off, but I hope you enjoyed it anyways.


End file.
